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Edited by ANDREW LANG 



OLAVBEHOUSB 



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MOWBRAY 


MORRIS 



NEW YORK 
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 

1887 







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A LIST OF AUTHORITIES FOE THE 
LIFE OF CLAVERHOUSE. 



" An Account of the Proceedings of the Estates in Scotland : " 
London, 1689. 

Balcarres' " Memoirs touching the Eevolutionin Scotland : " printed 
for the Bannatyne Club, 1841. 

Browne's " History of the Highlands and the Highland Clans : " 2nd 
ed., 1845. 

Burnet's " History of My Own Time," ed. 1809. 

Burt's " Letters from the North of Scotland," ed. 1818. 

Burton's " History of Scotland," 2nd ed. 

Cannon's " Historical Records of the British Army." 

" Memoirs of Captain John Creichton : " Scott's edition of Swift's 
Works, vol. xii. ed. 1883. 

" Memoirs of Sir Ewan Cameron of Lochiel : " printed for the Abbots- 
ford Club, 1842. 

Chambers's " History of the Rebellions in Scotland : " Constable's 
Miscellany, vol. xlii. 

" The Cloud of Witnesses," 1714. 

Dalrymple's " Memoirs of Great Britain and Ireland," 2nd ed., 1771. 

Defoe's " Memoirs of the Church of Scotland," 1714. 

" Memoirs of the Lord Viscount Dundee," &c, 1714. 

" Letters of the Viscount of Dundee, with Illustrative Documents : " 
printed for the Bannatyne Club, 1826. 

Lt.-Colonel Fergusson's "Laird of Lag," 1886. 

Fountainhall's " Historical Notices of Scottish Affairs : " printed for 
the Bannatyne Club, 1848. 

Howie's " Heroes for the Faith, or Lives of the Scots Worthies," 
edited by William McGavin, ed. 1883. 

Kirkton's " True History «of the Church of Scotland from the Restor- 
ation to the year 1678," edited by C. K. Sharpe, J 817. This 
edition includes Russell's account of the murder of Archbishop 
Sharp and of the affairs at Drumclog and Glasgow. 



vi A List of Authorities 

" The Lauderdale Papers : " printed for the Camden Society, 1884-5. 
" The Leven and Melville Papers : " printed for the Bannatyne Club, 

1843. 
"The Lives of the Lindsays," 2nd ed., 1858. 
Macpherson's " Original Papers," 1775. 
Macaulay's "History of England," ed. 1882. 
"Memoirs of the War carried on in Scotland and Ireland, 1689-91," 

by Major-General Hugh Mackay : printed for the Abbotsford 

Club, 1833, 
"Life of Lieut.-G-eneral Hugh Mackay of Scowrie,"by John Mackay 

of Rockfieid, 1836. 
Napier's " Memorials and Letters Illustrative of the Life and Times 

of John Graham of Claverhouse, Viscount Dundee," 1859-62. 
" New Statistical Account of Scotland," 1845. 
Pennant's " Tour in Scotland," 1774. 
Scott's " Tales of a Grandfather." 
Simpson's " Times of Claverhouse," 1844. 
Simpson's " Gleanings in the Mountains," 1846. 
Shield's " Short Memorial of the Sufferings and Grievances of the 

Presbyterians in Scotland," 1690. 
Stewart's " Sketches of the Highlanders of Scotland," 1822. 
"Remarks on Col. Stewart's Sketches of the Highlanders," 1823. 
Walker's " Biographia Presbyteriana," 1732, reprinted at Edinburgh 

1837. 
Wodrow's " History of the Sufferings of the Church of Scotland," 

Burn's ed. 1838. 



CLAVEKHOUSE. 



CHAPTER I. 

John Gkaham, Viscount of Dundee, best known, per- 
haps, in history by his territorial title of Claverhouse, 
was born in the year 1643. No record, indeed, exists 
either of the time or place of his birth, but a decision 
of the Court of Session seems to fix the former in 
that year — the year, as lovers of historical coincidences 
will not fail to remark, of the Solemn League and 
Covenant. 1 

He came of an ancient and noble stock. The family 
of Graham can be traced back in unbroken succession to 
the beginning of the twelfth century ; and indeed there 
have been attempts to encumber its scutcheon with the 
quarterings of a fabulous antiquity. Gram, we are told, 
was in some primeval time the generic name for all in- 
dependent leaders of men, and was borne by one of the 

1 Fountainhall's " Historical Notices : " Napier's " Memorials of 
Dundee," i. 183. The decision in question is dated July 24th, 1687, 
and certainly appears to prove that Claverhouse did not attain his 
majority till 1664, which would fix his birth in the year above given. 

B 



2 Claverhouse 

earliest kings of Denmark. Another has surmised that 
if Graham be the proper spelling of the name, it may 
be compounded of Gray and Ham, the dwelling, or home, 
of Gray ; but if Grame, or Graeme, be the correct form, 
then we must regard it as a genuine Saxon word, 
signifying fierce, or grim. Such exercises are ingenious, 
and to some minds, possibly, interesting; but they 
are surely in this Gase superfluous, A pedigree, says 
Scott laughingly as he sits down to trace his own, 
is the national prerogative of every Scottishman, as 
unalienable as his pride and poverty ; but he must 
be very poor or very proud who cannot find his 
account in the legitimate pedigree of the House of 
Montrose. 

The first of the branch of Claverhouse, which took 
its name from a small town in Forfarshire a few miles 
to the north of Dundee, was John, son of John Graham 
of Balargus in the same shire. Graham of Balargus 
was the son of another John, who was the second son 
of Sir Eobert Graham of Fintrey, the eldest son of 
Robert Graham of Strathcanon, son and heir of Sir 
William Graham of Kincardine, by his wife the Lady 
Mary Stuart, widow of George first Earl of Angus and 
daughter of King Robert the Third — the unhappy king 
of " The Fair Maid of Perth." The grandson of John 
Graham was Sir William Graham of Claverhouse, the 
chosen friend of his cousin, the gallant and unfortunate 
Marquis of Montrose. By his wife Marion, daughter 
of Thomas Fotheringham of Powrie, Sir William had 
two sons, George and Walter, of whom the latter was 
the ancestor of those Grahams of Duntroon who at a 
later period assumed the title of Dundee. George 



Chapter I 3 

left one son, another Sir William, who married Lady 
Jean Carnegie, daughter of the first Earl of ISTorthesk, 
and by her had four children — two daughters, Margaret 
and Anne, and two sons, John and David. David is, 
as will be seen, not unrecorded in the annals of his 
country ; but his name has been completely eclipsed by 
that of his elder brother, the " bloody Claver'se " of the 
Whigs, the "bonnie Dundee" of the Jacobites, one of 
the most execrated or one of the most idolised cha- 
racters in the history of this kingdom, according to 
the temper and the taste of the writers and readers of 
history. 

The register of that year shows that the two 
brothers matriculated at Saint Leonard's College in the 
University of Saint Andrews, on February 13th, 1665. 
Before this date all is a blank. Of John's boyish years 
history and tradition are equally silent. Long after 
his death, indeed, some idle stories became current, as 
their fashion is, of prophecies and prodigies in that 
early time. His nurse is said to have foretold that a 
river taking its name from a goose would prove fatal to 
him, and to have lamented that her child's career of 
glory had been frustrated because he had been checked 
in the act of devouring a live toad. This last story 
sounds much like a popular version of the Grecian 
fable of Demophoon, as told in the Homeric hymn to 
Demeter. But, as a matter of fact, it was a legend 
current of the infancy both of the Regent Morton and 
of Montrose himself before it was given to Claverhouse ; 
and possibly of many other youthful members of the 
Scottish aristocracy, who happened to make themselves 
obnoxious to a class of their countrymen whose piety 

B 2 



4 Cla verhouse 

seems to have added no holy point to their powers of 
invective. There is an ingenious fancy, and, at least, 
as much reason as is generally displayed in mythological 
researches, in the surmise that this particular legend 
may have owed its origin to the French connection 
with Scotland, a connection which would naturally have 
found little favour in the eyes of the followers of John 
Knox. 

Olaverhouse seems to have neglected neither the 
studies nor the discipline of the University. He has, 
indeed, in our own time been denied enough even of the 
common intellectual culture of his day to save him from 
ridicule as a blockhead. But there is no reason for 
this contemptuous statement. His own contempora- 
ries, and others, who if not exactly contemporaries have 
at least as good right to be heard as a writer of our own 
time, have left very different testimony. Burnet, who, 
though connected by marriage with Olaverhouse and at 
one time much in his confidence, was the last of men to 
praise him unduly, has vouched both for his abilities 
and virtues. Dalrymple, who was certainly no Jacobite, 
though censured by the Whigs for his indulgence to 
James, has described him as from his earliest youth an 
earnest reader of the great actions recorded by the poets 
and historians of antiquity. More particular testimony 
still is offered by a writer whose work was not, indeed, 
undertaken till nearly fifty years after the battle of Killie- 
crankie, but whose pictures of those men and times 
have all the freshness and colour of a contemporary. 
The author of those memoirs of Lochiel of which Mac- 
aulay has made such brilliant use, has credited Olaver- 
house with a considerable knowledge of mathematics 



Chapter I 5 

and general literature, especially such branches of those 
studies as were likely to be of most use to a soldier. 
Lastly, Doctor Munro, Principal of the College of Edin- 
burgh, when charged before a Parliamentary Commis- 
sion with rejoicing at the news of Killiecrankie, denied 
at least that he had rejoiced at the death of the con- 
queror, for whom he owned " an extraordinary value," 
such as, in his own words, " no gentleman, soldier, 
scholar, or civilised citizen will find fault with me for." 1 

1 The " Memoirs of the Life of Sir E wan Cameron of Lochiel " were 
printed for the Abbotsford Club in 1842. They are believed to have 
been written between 1730 and 1740 by John Drummond of Bahaldy, 
a grandson, or great-grandson, of Lochiel. Several copies of the 
manuscript are in existence, of which the best is said by the editor 
to be the one then in the possession of Mr. Crawf urd of Cartsburn. 
It is written in a clear hand upon small quarto paper, and bound in 
two volumes. On the fly-leaf of the first volume is written " Aug. 
7. 1732, Jo. Drummond." See also Burnet's " History of My Own 
Time," ii. 553 ; Dalrymple's " Memoirs of Great Britain and Ire- 
land," i. 344 ; Burton's " History of Scotland," vii. 360 ; Napier's 
" Memorials of Viscount Dundee," i. 16-32, and 178-9. Burnet married 
Lady Margaret Kennedy, daughter of the Earl of Cassilis and aunt 
of Lady Dundee. In point of style and arrangement, of taste and 
temper— in everything, in short, which helps to make literature, 
Napier's book is perhaps as] bad as it is possible for a book to be. 
But his industry is unimpeachable ; and, through the kindness of the 
late Duke of Buccleuch, he was able to publish no less than thirty- 
seven letters written in Claverhouse's own hand to the first Duke of 
Queensberry, not one of which had been included in the collection 
printed for the Bannatyne Club in 1826, nor was, in fact, known to 
be in existence by anyone outside the family of Buccleuch. His 
book includes also the fragment of a memoir of Dundee and his 
times, left in manuscript by Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, of Hoddam, 
Walter Scott's friend. The memoir was thrown up, it is said, in de- 
spair on the appearance of " Old Mortality." Some idea of the extent 
to which Napier suffered from the Lues Boswelliana may be gathered 
from the fact that he regards even the Claverhouse of that incom- 
parable romance as a libel. 



6 Cla verho use 

It would be as foolish, to take these witnesses too 
literally, as it is foolish to call Olaverhouse a blockhead 
because he could not spell correctly. For many years 
after his death men of position and abilities far more 
distinguished and acknowledged than his, were not 
ashamed to spell with a recklessness that would inevit- 
ably now entail on any fourth-form boy the last penalty 
of academic law. Scott says that Claverhouse spelled 
like a chambermaid; and Macaulay has compared the 
handwriting of the period to the handwriting of washer- 
women. The relative force of these comparisons others 
may determine, but it is certain that in this respect 
at least Claverhouse sinned in good company. The 
letters of even such men as the Lord Advocate, Sir 
George Mackenzie, and the Dalrymples, — letters written 
in circumstances more favourable to composition than 
the despatches of a soldier are ever likely to be — are 
every whit as capricious and startling in their variations 
from the received standard of orthography. If it is 
impossible quite to agree with his staunch eulogist, 
Drummond of Bahaldy, that Claverhouse was " much 
master in the epistolary way of writing," at least his 
letters are plain and to the purpose ; and the letters of 
a soldier have need to be no more. 

It is, of course, unlikely that he could have been, 
even for those days, a cultivated man. The studies 
of youth are but the preparation for the culture of 
manhood; and after his three quiet years at , Saint 
Andrews were done, his leisure for study must have 
been scant indeed. But all we know of his character, 
temperament, and habits of life forbid the supposition 
that he wasted that precious time either in idleness or 



Chapter I 7 

indulgence. His bitterest enemies have borne witness 
to his singular freedom from those vices which his age 
regarded more as the characteristics than the failings of 
a gentleman. The most scurrilous of the many scurrilous 
chroniclers of the Covenanters' wrongs has owned in a 
characteristic passage that his life was uniformly clean. 1 
Gifted by nature with quick parts, of dauntless ambition 
and untiring energy both of mind and body, he was not 
the man to have let slip in idleness any chance of forti- 
fying himself for the great struggle of life, or to have 
neglected studies which might be useful to him in the 
future because they happened to be irksome in the 
present. It is only, therefore, in reason to suppose that 
he managed his time at the University prudently and 
well, and this may easily be done without assuming for 
him any special intellectual gifts or graces. 

But, as a matter of strict fact, from the date of his 
matriculation to the year 1672 nothing is really known 
of Claverhouse or his affairs. It has, however, been 
generally assumed that, after the usual residence of three 
years at the University, he crossed over into France to 
study the art of war under the famous Turenne. As the 
practice was common then among young men of good 
birth and slender fortune, it is not unlikely that Claver- 
house followed it. A large body of English troops was 
a few years later serving under the French standard. In 
1672 the Duke of Monmouth, then in the prime of his 
fortune, joined Turenne with a force of six thousand 
English and Scottish troops, amongst whom marched 

1 " The Hell wicked-witted, bloodthirsty Graham of Claverhouse 
hated to spend his time with wine and women." — " Life of Walter 
Smith," in Walker's " Biographia Presbyteriana." 



8 Cla verhouse 

John Churchill, a captain of the Grenadier company 
of Monmouth's own regiment. But the military glory 
Claverhouse is said to have won in the French service 
cannot have been great : his studies in the art of war 
must have been mainly theoretical. In the year 1668, 
the year in which Claverhouse is said to have left Scot- 
land for France, Lewis had been compelled to pause 
in his career of conquest. The Triple Alliance had in 
that year forced upon him the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle. 
He had been compelled to restore Franche Comte, 
though he still kept hold of the towns he had won in 
the Low Countries. But the joy with which all parties 
in England welcomed this alliance had scarcely found 
expression when Charles, impatient of the economy of 
his Parliament and indifferent to its approval, opened 
those negotiations which, with the help of his sister the 
Duchess of Orleans, and that other Duchess, Louisa of 
Portsmouth, resulted in the secret treaty of Dover. We 
are not now concerned to examine the particulars of 
a transaction which even Charles himself did not dare 
to confide entirely to his ministers, familiar as the 
Cabal was with shameless deeds. It is enough for our 
present purpose to remember that, in return for a large 
annual subsidy and the promise of help should England 
again take up arms against her king, Charles bound 
himself to aid Lewis in crushing the rising power of 
Holland and to support the claims of the House of 
Bourbon to the throne of Spain. Supplies were obtained 
for immediate purposes by closing the Exchequer, an 
act which ruined half the goldsmiths in London. As a 
set-off against this, a royal proclamation, arrogating to 
itself powers only Parliament could rightly exercise, 



Chapter I g 

suspended the laws against Nonconformists and Catho- 
lics. The latter were, indeed, allowed to say Mass only 
within their private houses, but to dissenters of every 
other class was granted the freest liberty of public 
worship. 

The declaration of war followed close on the declara- 
tion of indulgence. The immediate result of the latter 
was the release of John Bunyan from an imprisonment 
of twelve years, and the publication of the " Pilgrim's 
Progress." A more important and lasting result was 
the Revolution of 1688. Both declarations were un- 
popular, but the Declaration of Indulgence was the 
most unpopular of the two. It was unpopular with the 
zealous Churchman for the concessions it made both to 
Papist and Puritan. It was unpopular with the Puritan 
because he was compelled to share it with the Papist. It 
was unpopular with the Papist because it was less liberal 
to him than to the Puritan. It was unpopular with all 
classes of patriotic Englishmen alike, because it directly 
violated that prerogative of the Legislature for which 
so much English blood had been already shed. It was 
soon, indeed, repealed, and its repeal was soon followed 
by the dissolution of the Cabal, the passing of the Test 
Act, and peace with Holland. But though the fears of 
the nation were thus laid to rest for a time, it now first 
became clear to those who could look beyond the passing 
day, and whose vision was sharpened by the memory of 
what had been, how surely England was moving under 
the son back again to a state of things which had cost 
the father his crown and his life. 

But to return to the declaration of war. Lewis 
received, and probably expected to receive, but little 



1 o Cla verho use 

support from his English allies, and in a furious action 
fought off the coast of Suffolk De Ruyter more than 
held his own against the combined fleets of France and 
England. But on land the French King carried all 
before him. Led by Conde and Turenne, the ablest 
captains of the age, a vast host poured across the 
Rhine. The Dutch were waked from the vain dreams 
of a French alliance, into which they had been lulled 
by the chiefs of the great merchant class which had 
risen to power on the fall of the House of Orange, 
only to find themselves helpless. Town after town 
opened its gates to the invader : three out of the seven 
provinces of the Federation were already in his hands : 
his watch-fires were seen from the walls of Amsterdam. 
In the first mad paroxysm of their despair the people 
rose against their leaders. De Ruyter, who had borne 
their flag to victory on many a hard fought day, was 
insulted in the public streets : the Grand Pensionary, 
John De Witt, and his brother Cornelius were brutally 
murdered before the palace of the States-General at 
the Hague. The office of Stadtholder was re-esta- 
blished ; and the common voice called back to it a 
prince of that House which twenty years ago had been 
excluded for ever from the affairs of a State which had 
never existed without it. 

William Henry, great-grandson of the founder of 
the Dutch Republic, hereafter to be known as William 
the Third of England, was then in his twenty-second 
year. The heroic spirit of William the Silent lived 
again in the frail body of his descendant. Without a 
moment's hesitation he accepted the hard and thank- 
less task imposed upon him. With wise counsel and 



Chapter I it 

brave words he calmed and revived the drooping hearts 
of his countrymen. He rejected with scorn the offers 
both of Charles and Lewis to seduce him from his 
allegiance. He replied to Buckingham's remonstrances 
on the folly of a struggle which could only mean ruin 
to the Commonwealth, that he would fight while there 
was a ditch left for him to die in. His courage spread. 
The Dutch flew to arms : without a regretful voice they 
summoned to their aid their last irresistible ally : the 
dykes were cut, and soon the waters, destroying to save, 
spread over all that trim and fertile land. The tide of 
invasion was checked, and with the next spring it began 
to roll slowly backward. The great princes of the 
Continent became alarmed at this new prospect of 
French ambition. The sluggish Emperor began to be- 
stir himself. Spain, fast dwindling to the shadow 
of that mighty figure which had once bestrode two 
worlds, sent some troops to aid a cause which was, 
indeed, half her own. By sea the Dutch could do no 
more than keep their flag flying, but it says much for 
their sailors that they could do that against a foe their 
equal in skill and courage, and almost always their 
superior in numbers. On land they were more success- 
ful. The Bishop of Munster was driven back from the 
walls of Groningen : Naerden and Bonne were retaken : 
before the summer was over the whole electorate of 
Cologne was in the hands of William and his allies. 
The campaign of 1674 was less fortunate to the young 
general. Charles had, it is true, been compelled by his 
Parliament to make a peace more favourable than the 
Dutch could have hoped for ; but in almost every direc- 
tion Lewis made good again the ground he had lost 



1 2 Cla verhousr 

in the previous year. William, indeed, took Grave, but 
he was compelled to raise the siege of Oudenarde. A 
large force of Germans under the Elector of Branden- 
burg was driven out of Alsace across the Rhine by 
Turenne, who had a short while before completely 
routed the Imperial troops under the Duke of Lorraine 
at Sintzheim. Franche Comte was reconquered in a 
few weeks. But the most notable action of the year 
was the battle of Seneff, fought near Mons on August 
11th between William and Conde. It was long, bloody, 
and indecisive ; but it raised William's reputation for 
courage and ability to the highest pitch, and drew from 
his veteran opponent one of those compliments a brave 
soldier is always glad to pay a foeman worthy of his 
steel. " The Prince of Orange," said Conde, " has acted 
in everything like an old captain, except in venturing 
his life too like a young soldier." 

The battle of Seneff has for us, too, a particular 
importance. It gives us, according to some of his bio- 
graphers, the first glimpse of Claverhouse as a soldier. 
The story goes that, at an early period of the fight, 
William with a handful of his men was closely beset by 
a large body of French troops. In making his way back 
to his own lines the Prince's horse foundered in some 
marshy ground, and he would inevitably have been either 
killed or made prisoner had not Claverhouse, who was 
of the party, mounted him on his own charger and 
brought him safe out of the press. For this 'service 
William gave the young soldier (who was, however, 
the Prince's senior by seven years) a captain's com- 
mission in his own regiment of Horse Guards, com- 
manded by the Count de Solmes who led the English 



Chapter I 13 

van on the day of the Boyne. This story has been 
contemptuously rejected by Macaulay as a Jacobite fable 
composed many years after both actors in the scene 
were dead. The story may not be true, but Macaulay 's 
reasons for rejecting it are not quite exact. Reports of 
Claverhouse's gallantry at Seneff were certainly current 
during his lifetime. It is mentioned, for example, in 
a copy of doggerel verses addressed to Claverhouse 
by some nameless admirer on New Year's Day 1683. 1 
And there is yet more particular testimony, though, 
like the former, it is of that nature which a historian 
will always feel himself at liberty to reject if it does 
not match with the rest of his case, and which counsel 
on the opposite side are accordingly at equal liberty 
to make use of. In the memoirs of Lochiel mention 
is made of a Latin poem written by a certain Mr. 
James Philip of Amryclos, in Forfarshire, who bore 
Dundee's standard at Killiecrankie. Lochiel's bio- 
grapher does not quote the Latin text, but gives trans- 
lations of certain passages. The original manuscript, 
bearing the date 1691, is now in the Advocates' Library 
at Edinburgh. Napier had seen this u Grameis," as the 
work is called, and compared it with the translations, 
which he declares to be very imperfect, as, from the 
specimens he gives, they undoubtedly are. Macaulay, 
who never saw the Latin text, owns to have taken a 

1 " I saw the man who at St. Neff did see 
His conduct, prowess, martial gallantry : 
He wore a white plumach that day ; not one 
Of Belgians wore a white, but him alone 
And though that day was fatal, yet he fought, 
And for his part fair triumphs with him brought." 
Laing's " Fugitive Scottish Poetry of the Seventeenth Century." 



1 4 Cla verho use 

few touches from the passages quoted in the memoirs 
for his inimitable picture of affairs in the Highlands 
during the days immediately preceding Killiecrankie ; 
but the passage recording the early gallantry of the 
conqueror at Killiecrankie he did not take. 1 

It is unfortunate that the tale of these early years 
should assume so controversial a tone. But where 
all, or almost all, is sheer conjecture, it is inevitable 
that the narrative must rest rather on argument than 
fact. The precise moment when Olaverhouse trans- 
ferred his services from the French to the Dutch flag 

1 The passage occurs in the fifth book. Dundee, retreating be- 
fore the forces of the Convention, is represented as musing over his 
camp-fire on the ingratitude of the Prince whose life he had once 
saved. 

" Tu vero, Arctose gentis prasdo improbe, tanti 
Fons et origo mali, Nassovi, ingrate virorum, 
Immeritum quid me, nunc Caesaris arma secutum, 
Prosequeris toties, et iniquo Marte fatiges ? 
Nonne ego, cum lasso per Belgia stagna caballo 
Agmina liligeri f ugeres victricia Galli, 
Ipse mei impositum dorso salientis equi te 
Hostibus eripui, salvumque in castra reduxi ? 
Hsecne mihi meriti persolvis praemia tanti 1 
Proh scelus ! O Soceri rapti nequissime sceptri ! " 

The translation, which is certainly, as Napier calls it, both imperfect 
and free, is to this effect : 

" When the fierce Gaul through Belgian stanks you fled, 
Fainting, alone, and destitute of aid, 
While the proud victor urged your doubtful fate, 
And your tired courser sunk beneath your weight ; 
Did I not mount you on my vigorous steed, 
And save your person by his fatal speed 1 
For life and freedom then by me restored 
I'm thus rewarded by my Belgick Lord. 
Ungrateful Prince ! " 



Chapter I 15 

is, in truth, no more certain than the date of his birth 
is certain, or his conduct at Saint Andrews, or, indeed, 
than it is certain that he ever at any time served 
under Lewis. The ta]e of those English services under 
the French King is in the last degree confused and 
doubtful. If it is so in the case of such a man as Marl- 
borough, small wonder that it is so in the case of such 
a man as Claverhouse, whose name was practically 
unknown till ten years before his death. That he did, 
however, at one time bear arms in the Dutch ranks 
seems as indisputable as any part of the scanty story 
of the first two-and-thirty years of his life can be said 
to be. But beyond this it is impossible to go. 

In 1677 he left William's service and returned to 
Scotland. An idle story was circulated some years 
afterwards of a brawl with one of William's officers 
who had received the regiment promised to Claver- 
house, of a reprimand from William, and an indignant 
vow never to serve again under a prince who had 
broken his word. The judicial weight that has been 
brought to demolish this slender fabric is unnecessary. 
The story itself is not consistent with the characters of 
either men. It is very possible that the young soldier, 
like another young man of those days, may have grown 
" tired with knocking at preferment's door ; " but, in 
truth, a reason to account for their parting is very easily 
found. With the campaign of 1677 all fighting on the 
Continent was stayed for a time. Claverhouse's pro- 
fession was fighting. After the peace of Nimeguen 
in 1678 Scotland was the only European country then 
offering a chance of employment to a soldier of fortune. 
In 1677, accordingly, he resigned his commission in 



1 6 Cla verho use 

the Dutch service and crossed over into England, tak- 
ing with him a reputation for courage and ability that 
at once recommended him to the King and Duke of 
York for a man likely to be useful in such affairs as they 
had then on hand. Indeed, the character that it is 
clear he brought back with him from Holland is alone 
sufficient to disprove the story of the quarrel in the 
courtyard at Loo. 1 

1 The stories of Claverhouse's conduct at Seneff, and of the 
quarrel at Loo, are told in the " Life of Lieut.-General Hugh Mackay," 
by John Mackay of Rockfields, and in the " Memoirs of the Lord 
Viscount Dundee," published in 1714, and professing to be written 
by an officer of the army. This little book is remarkable chiefly as 
being the first recorded attempt at a biography of Dundee. The 
writer was possibly not an officer, nor personally acquainted with 
Dundee. But he had certainly contrived to learn a good deal about 
him and his affairs ; and as later research has either corroborated 
or, at least, made probable, much of his information, it seems to me 
quite as fair to use it for Dundee, as to use the unsupported testi- 
mony of the Covenanters against him. According to his biographer, 
Mackay himself was Claverhouse's successful rival. According to 
the earlier writer, the man was David Colyear, afterwards Lord 
Portmore, and husband of Catherine Sedley, Lady Dorchester, 
James's favourite and ugliest mistress. 



17 



CHAPTER II. 

It will be necessary now to review the condition of 
Scotland at the time when Claverhouse began first to 
be concerned in her affairs, and of the causes political 
and religious — if, indeed, in Scottish history it be ever 
possible to separate the two — which produced that con- 
dition. Without clearly understanding the state of 
parties which then distracted that unhappy country, it 
will not be possible clearly to understand the position 
of Claverhouse ; and without a clear understanding of 
his position, it will certainly not be possible to form a 
just estimate of his character. It is by too readily 
yielding to the charm of a writer, who had not then for 
his purpose the impartial estimate of a human character 
so much as the embellishment of a political principle, 
that public opinion has been for many years content to 
accept a savage caricature in place of a portrait. It 
would be impertinent to say that Macaulay did not un- 
derstand the circumstances into which Claverhouse was 
forced, and the train of events which had caused them ; 
but it would not have suited his purpose so clearly and 
strictly to have explained them that others might have 
traversed the verdict he intended to be established. 
He heard, indeed, and he determined to hear, only one 
side of the case : indeed, at the time he wrote, there 





1 8 Claverhouse 

was not much to be heard on the other ; and on the 
evidence he accepted the verdict was a foregone con- 
clusion. It is impossible altogether to acquit Claver- 
house of the charges laid to his account, nor will any 
attempt here be made to do so ; but even the worst 
that can be proved against him, when considered im- 
partially with the circumstances of his position and 
the spirit of the time, will, I think, be found to take 
& very different complexion from that which has been 
somewhat too confidently given to them. 1 

When Charles the Second was restored to the throne 
of his fathers he was hailed in Scotland with the same 
tumultuous joy that greeted him in England. The 
Scottish nation was indeed weary of the past, It was 
weary alike of the yoke of Cromwell and of the yoke of 
the Covenant. The first Covenant — the Covenant of 1557 
— had been a protest against the tyranny of the Pope : 

1 This is, perhaps, the best place to disclaim all intention of scoff- 
ing at this great writer and historian. It is a common impertinence 
of the day in which I have no wish to join. It is not, I hope, an im- 
pertinence to say that only those who have, for their own purposes, 
been forced to follow closely in his tracks can have any just idea of 
the unwearying patience and acuteness with which he has examined 
the confused and so often conflicting records of that time, or of the 
incomparable skill with which he has brought them into a clear con- 
tinuous narrative. To glean after Macaulay is indeed a barren task. 
So far, then, from affecting to cavil at his work, I must acknow- 
ledge that without his help this little book would have been still 
less. Yet I do think he has been hard upon Claverhouse. Per- 
haps the scheme of his history did not require, or even \ allow him, 
to examine the man's character and circumstances so closely as a 
biographer must examine them. It is still more important to re- 
member that the letters discovered by Napier in the Queensberry 
Archives were not known to him. Had he seen them, I am persuaded 
that he would have found reason to think less harshly of their 
writer. 



Chapter II 19 

the Covenant of 1643 was a protest against the tyranny 
of the Crown. It was the Scottish supplement, framed 
in the religious spirit and temperament of the Scottish 
nation, to the English protest against ship-money. 
The voice, first sounded among the rich valleys and 
pleasant woods of Buckinghamshire, was echoed in the 
churchyard of the Grey Friars at Edinburgh. Six 
months later the triumph of Presbyterianism was com- 
pleted, when in the church of Saint Margaret's at 
Westminster the Commons of England ratified the 
Solemn League and Covenant of Scotland. Over the 
wild time which followed it will be unnecessary for our 
purpose to linger. The work was done : then followed 
the reaction. In both countries the oppressed became 
in turn the oppressors. The champions of religious 
liberty became as bigoted and intolerant as those whose 
intolerance and bigotry had first goaded them into 
rebellion. The old Presbyterian saw the rise of new 
modes of worship with the same horror that he had 
shown at the ritual of Laud. Milton protested that 
the " new Presbyter is but old Priest writ large." 
Within only four years of the outbreak of the civil war 
no less than sixteen religious sects were found existing 
in open defiance of the principles of faith which that war 
was pledged to uphold. One common bond, indeed, 
united these sects in sympathy : one and all repudiated 
with equal energy the authority of the Church to pre- 
scribe a fixed form of worship : a national Church was, 
in their eyes, as odious and impossible a tyranny as 
the divine right of kings. But this common hatred of 
the interference of a Mother Church could not teach 
them tolerance for each other. Cardinal Newman has 

c 2 



20 Cla verhousb 

described the enthusiasm of Saint Anthony as calm 5 
manly, and magnanimous, full of affectionate loyalty 
to the Church and the Truth. " It was not," he says, 
" vulgar, bustling, imbecile, unstable, undutiful." The 
religious enthusiasm of the two nations at this time, 
though at heart sincere and just, was unfortunately in 
its public aspect the exact opposite of Saint Anthony's. 
There was the essential great meaning of the matter, to 
borrow Carlyle's words, but there were also the mean, 
peddling details. It was the misfortune of many, of 
three kings of England among the number, that the 
latter should seem the most vital of the two. Presby- 
terian and Independent, Leveller and Baptist, Brownist 
and Fifth Monarchy Man, one and all stood up and 
made proclamation, crying, " Look unto me, and be ye 
saved, all the ends of the earth ; for I am God, and 
there is none else." Well might Cromwell adjure them 
in that war of words which followed the sterner conflict 
on the heights of Dunbar, " I beseech you, in the bowels 
of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken. 55 

Though the number and variety of the dissentients 
in England were far greater than in Scotland, where 
the bulk both of the people and the clergy stood firmly 
within the old Presbyterian lines, yet in the latter 
country the separation was far more bitter and produc- 
tive of far more violent results. In the former the 
strong hand of Cromwell, himself an Independent, but 
keen to detect a useful man under every masquerade of 
worship, and prompt to use him, kept the sects from 
open disruption. Quarrel as they might among them- 
selves, there was one stronger than them all, and they 
knew it. The old Committee of Estates, originally 



Chapter II 21 

appointed by the Parliament as a permanent body in 
1640, was not strong enough to control the spirit it had 
helped to raise : it was not even strong enough to keep 
order within its own house. The new Committee was 
but a tool in the hands of Argyle. The old Presby- 
terian viewed with equal dislike the sectaries of Crom- 
well, the men of the Engagement which had cost 
Hamilton his head, and the Malignants who had 
gathered to the standard of Montrose. The Eeso- 
lutioner, who wished to repeal the Act of Classes, was 
too lukewarm : the Remonstrant was too violent. It 
was by this last body that the troubles we have now to 
examine came upon Scotland. 

After the collapse of Hamilton's army at Uttoxeter 
in August 1648, a body of Covenanters assembled at 
Mauchline, in Ayrshire, to protest against the leniency 
with which the Engagement had been treated in the 
Estates, where, indeed, a considerable minority had 
been inclined openly to countenance it. Their leader 
was at first the Earl of Eglinton, a staunch Covenanting 
lord ; but as they gathered strength Argyle joined them 
with his Highlanders, and the command soon passed 
into his hands. The Protesters marched upon Edin- 
burgh. In an attempt to take Stirling Castle they 
were defeated by Sir George Monro with a division of 
Hamilton's army which had not crossed the border; 
but Argyle had better tools to work with than the 
claymores of his Highlanders. He opened negotiations 
with Cromwell, who led an army in person into Scotland, 
renewed the Covenant, laid before the Estates (the new 
Estates of Argyle and his party) certain considerations, 
as he diplomatically called them, demanding, among 



2 2 CLA VER HOUSE 

other things, that no person accessory to the Engage- 
ment should be hereafter employed in any public place 
or trust. The Committee were only too willing to have 
the support of Cromwell to what they themselves so 
vehemently desired. Two Acts were quickly passed : 
one reversing many of the acts of its predecessors and 
confirming the considerations : the other, known in 
history as the Act of Classes, defining the various mis- 
demeanours which were to exclude men from sitting 
in Parliament or holding any public office, for a period 
measured by their offences, and practically to be de- 
termined by the judicatories of the Kirk. 

This Mauchline Convention was popularly known at 
the time as the Whiggamores' Eaid, a name memorable 
as the first introduction into history of a word soon to 
become only too familiar, and still a part of our political 
vocabulary. 1 Its immediate result was to throw the 

1 " The south-west counties of Scotland have seldom corn enough 
to serve them round the year ; and the northern parts producing 
more than they need, those in the west come in the summer to buy 
at Leith the stores that come from the north; and from a word 
i whiggam,' used in driving their horses, all that drove were called 
the ' whiggamores,' and shorter, the 'whiggs.' Now in that year, 
after the news came down of Duke Hamilton's defeat, the ministers 
animated the people to rise and march to Edinburgh; and they 
came up, marching on the head of their parishes, with an unheard- 
of fury, praying and preaching all the way as they came. The 
Marquis of Argyle and his party came and headed them, they being 
about 6,000. This was called the Whiggamores' Inroad : and even 
after that all that opposed the Court came in contempt to be called 
Whiggs : and from Scotland the word was brought into England, 
where it is now one of our unhappy terms of distinction." — Burnet, 
i. 58. See also Scott's " Tales of a Grandfather," ch. xii. Mr. Green, 
however, thought the word whig might be the same as our whey, 
implying a taunt against the *' sour-milk faces " of the fanatical 
Ayrshiremen. — " History of the English People," iii, 258, 



Chapter II 23 

direction of affairs still more exclusively into the hands 
of the clergy : indirectly, but no less surely, it was the 
cause of the Pentland Rising and the savage persecu- 
tion which followed, of the murder of Archbishop 
Sharp, of the battles of Drumclog and Bothwell Bridge, 
and of those terrible years still spoken of in Scotland 
as the " killing-time." It was, in short, like the wrath 
of Achilles, the spring of unnumbered woes. 

Then followed the execution of Charles. Against 
this the whole body of Presbyterians joined in protest- 
ing. The hereditary right of kings was, indeed, as 
much a principle of the Covenant as their divine right 
was opposed to it ; and the execution at Whitehall on 
January 30th, 1649, was regarded with as much horror 
by the Presbyterians of England as by the Presbyterians 
of Scotland. 

The first act of the Estates was to proclaim the 
Prince of Wales king of Great Britain, their next to 
send a deputation to Holland to invite him to take posses- 
sion of his kingdom. It had been better both for Charles 
and for Scotland that the invitation had never been ac- 
cepted. The terms on which alone the Scots would see 
the son of Charles Stuart back among them as crowned 
king were such as only the direst necessity could have 
induced him to accept : they were such as it seems now 
amazing that even the most bigoted and inexperienced 
could really have believed that the son of his father, or, 
indeed, any man in his position, would keep one moment 
longer than circumstances compelled him. But his 
advisers, led on by Wilmot and Buckingham, bid him 
sign — sign everything, or all would be lost. He signed 
everything. First he put his hand to the Solemn 



24 Cla verhouse 

League and Covenant : then to a second declaration 
promising to do his utmost to extirpate both Popery 
and Prelacy from all parts of his kingdom : finally, he 
consented to figure as the hero of a day of public 
fasting and humiliation for the tyranny of his father 
and the idolatry of his mother. And while he was 
acquiescing to each fresh demand with a shrug of his 
shoulders and a whispered jest to Buckingham, and in 
his heart as much hatred for his humiliators as he was 
capable of feeling for anybody, he was all the while 
urging on Montrose to strike that wild blow for his 
crown which was to lead the brave marquis to the 
scaffold. The deaths of Hamilton and Huntly had pre- 
ceded the death of Montrose by a few weeks : a few 
more weeks and Charles was in Scotland, a crowned 
king in name, virtually a prisoner. Within little more 
than a year the fight at Dunbar, and the " crowning 
mercy " of Worcester, had bitterly taught him how 
futile was all the humiliation he had undergone. 

It will be enough to briefly recall the main incidents 
of the years which intervened between the battle of 
Worcester and the Restoration. After the establish- 
ment of the Protectorate an Act of Indemnity was 
passed for the Scottish people. From this certain 
classes were excepted. All of the House of Hamilton, 
for instance, and some other persons of note, including 
Lauderdale : all who had joined the Engagement, or who 
had not joined in the protestation against it : all who 
had sat in Parliament or on the Committee of Estates 
after the coronation of Charles at Scone : all who had 
borne arms at the battle of Worcester. From this 
proscribed list, however, Argyle managed to extricate 



Chapter II 25 

himself. He had fortified himself at Inverary, and 
summoned a meeting of the Estates to which the 
chiefs of the Royalist party had been bidden. To 
conquer him in his own stronghold would have been 
difficult, perhaps impossible, to English soldiers unused 
to such warfare. Cromwell wisely preferred to negotiate, 
and Argyle was not hard to bring to terms. He bound 
himself to live at peace with the Government, and to 
use his best endeavours to persuade others to do so. 
In return he was to be left unmolested in the free 
enjoyment of his estates, and in the exercise of religion 
according to his conscience. 

The politicians were now silenced; but a noisier 
and more troublesome body had still to be reckoned 
with. In July, 1653, the General Assembly was closed, 
and Resolutioners and Remonstrants were sent to the 
right about together. Some measures, however, had 
to be taken to prevent them, not from cutting each 
other's throats, which would have suited the Govern- 
ment well enough, bat from stirring up a religious 
war, which they would inevitably have done if left 
to the free enjoyment of their own humours. It 
was necessary so to strengthen the hands of one 
of the two parties that the other should be compelled 
to refrain at least from open hostilities. The Resolu- 
tioners, as the most tolerant and the mildest-mannered, 
would have been those Cromwell would have preferred 
to see in the ascendency. But the Resolutioners had 
acknowledged Charles, and were, after their own 
fashion, in favour of the royal title. The Remonstrants 
were accordingly preferred. They, indeed, denied the 
authority of the Commonwealth over spiritual matters, 



2 6 Cla ver house 

but they also denied the authority of Charles ; and it 
was felt that at such a crisis the civil allegiance was of 
more value than the religious. A law was accordingly 
established dividing Scotland into five districts, in each 
of which certain members of the Remonstrant clergy 
were empowered to ordain ministers, as it were, to the 
exercise of their functions. At the same time it was 
not the object of Cromwell to exalt one party at the 
expense of the other so much as to strike a balance 
between the two ; and in doing this he was much served 
by the tact and good sense of James Sharp, whose name 
now first begins to be heard in Scottish history. He 
was on the side of the Resolutioners, but he so managed 
matters as to be favourably regarded by the Government 
as a person likely to be of service to them in the event 
of any open disruption between the two bodies, without 
losing the confidence of his own party. The Court of 
Session was the next to go, and in its place rose the 
Commission of Justice, of which James Dalrymple, 
afterwards Lord Stair, the first Scottish lawyer of his 
day, was the most conspicuous member. In 1654 the 
Act for incorporating the Union between England and 
Scotland was passed by the Commonwealth. With that 
Commonwealth disappeared the Union, but the few 
years of its existence were fruitful of at least one great 
boon to Scotland. In those years was established free- 
trade between the two countries : a boon for Scotland 
which she never properly appreciated till she lost it by 
the Navigation Act of the Restoration : an alleged griev- 
ance to England which had its share in bringing that 
Restoration to pass ; for it was then, and for long after, 
a fixed principle in the philosophy of English commerce 



Chapter II 27 

that free-trade between the two countries meant pil- 
laging Englishmen to enrich Scotchmen. A regular 
postal service was also established. The abortive rising 
known as Glencairn's Expedition was the only act of 
open hostility that broke those few years of comparative 
tranquillity ; and the lenient terms granted by Monk to 
the Highland leader tended more than anything to show 
how weary of the long rule of disorder and bloodshed all 
the best of the two nations were growing. On Septem- 
ber 3rd, 1658, Oliver Cromwell died, and in November 
of the following year Monk began his famous march to 
London. On May 25th, 1660, Charles the Second landed 
at Dover. 

Though the Remonstrants had won the upper hand 
for a time, the bulk of the Scottish nation had been all 
along on the side of the Resolutioners. Much as the 
character and religious views of Charles were to their 
distaste, the principle of the Covenant was for a king, 
and it was by the principle of the Covenant that the 
Scottish nation stood. The stern and narrow bigotry 
of the Remonstrants, whom their short taste of power 
had made of course more fanatical and more quarrelsome 
than ever, had almost succeeded in forcing the more 
moderate Presbyterians into the arms of the Royalists. 
A little tolerance, a little tact on the English side would 
probably have cemented the alliance. But it was not 
to be. 

It is important to remember this. The extreme 
party with which Claverhouse had to deal no more 
represented the Scottish nation than the Irishmen who 
follow Mr. Parnell's call in the House of Commons 
represent their nation now, or than men like Napper 



28 Claverhouse 

Tandy and Wolfe Tone represented it a century ago. 
It seems still a common belief that Claverhouse and 
his troopers were sent to force upon a sober, patient, 
God-fearing nation a religion and a king that they 
abhorred. Nothing could be farther from the truth. 
The large majority of the Scottish nation was as eager 
to welcome Charles as the old squires who had lost 
their fortunes for his father, or the young bloods who 
hoped to find fortunes under the son. The narrow 
and blatant form of religion professed by the extreme 
party was as repulsive to the bulk of their countrymen 
as to the King himself. 

These men were a remnant of the old Remonstrants 
of the Mauchline Convention. They had originally, as 
we have seen, looked to Argyle as their leader ; but when 
Argyle ranged himself on the side of the young King 
there were some among them who would not follow him. 
These maintained, and so far they were unquestionably 
right, that the " young man Charles Stuart " was, for all 
his protestations and oaths, as much at heart a Malig- 
nant as his father; and that those who pretended to 
believe him were playing the Kirk and the Covenant 
false. When Cromwell marched into Scotland to win 
the battle of Dunbar these men had formed them- 
selves into a separate party under Colonel Archibald 
. Strachan, an able soldier who commanded that division 
of Leslie's army which had defeated Montrose in Ross- 
shire. Strachan's design seems to have been to stand 
aloof for the present from either side ; but from some 
not very intelligible cause he fell into disgrace with his 
party, and this is said to have so preyed upon his mind 
as to have caused his death. From that time the Wild 



Chapter II 29 

Westland Whigs, as they began now to be called, had 
no ostensible leader. They withdrew sullenly to their 
own homes, contenting themselves during the remain- 
ing years of the Commonwealth with protesting against 
everybody and everything outside their own narrow 
circle. They must not be confounded with the general 
body of the Remonstrants, between whom and the Re- 
solutioners Cromwell had to keep the balance. They 
were a people apart. Throughout the wild hill-districts 
of the Western Lowlands they preached their fierce 
crusade against all who were not prepared to stand 
by the spirit of the Covenant as they chose to inter- 
pret it. The toleration they demanded they would 
not give. No man should be free to worship God as 
he pleased : every man must worship Him in the way 
which seemed good to them, and in that way only. 
The moderate Presbyterians were as hateful to them 
as Charles himself and all his bishops ; and they in 
their turn were as obnoxious to the majority of the 
Scottish nation as to the English Government. Cleric 
and layman alike was weary of the unending squabbles 
that had distracted the Church of Scotland since the days 
of Knox. They wished for peace ; and no peace was pos- 
sible so long as an ignorant and noisy minority would 
suffer it only at their own price. 

One other point should also be remembered. It 
has been the custom to excuse the cruelties of the 
Covenanters, when they could not be denied, as the 
acts of men goaded into madness by years of persecu- 
tion. This excuse will hardly serve. It might, indeed, 
serve to explain the murder of Sharp and the savage 
deeds of such men as Hamilton and Burley ; but long 



30 Cla verhouse 

before that time the Scottish fanatic had proved him- 
self a match in ferocity for the bloodiest Malignant 
of them all. After Philiphaugh one hundred Irish 
prisoners were shot in cold blood, while a minister of 
the Covenanting Church stood by, reiterating in savage 
glee, "The wark goes bonnily on." About the same 
time eighty women and children were in one day flung 
over the bridge at Linlithgow for the crime of having 
been followers of the camp of Montrose. In 1647 
three hundred of the Macdonalds who held a fortified 
post on a hill in Kintire surrendered at discretion to 
David Leslie. It is said that Leslie would have let 
them go but for his chaplain, John Nave. Borrowing 
the words of Samuel, " What meaneth then this bleating 
of the sheep in mine ears, and the lowing of the oxen 
which I hear ? " in a long and fiery harangue this man 
of God exhorted the conquerors to finish their work, 
and threatened their captain with the curse of Saul 
who spared the Amalekites. The prisoners were 
butchered to a man. 1 

If, then, it be but a delusion of later times that 
Scotland could at the Restoration have been conciliated 
into accepting a moderate form of Episcopacy, it is at 
least clear that there was at that time a strong party in 
the country anxious for a compromise between the two 
Churches, and willing to make all reasonable advances 
towards one. Unfortunately the first move on both 
sides was of a nature to make all chances of a com- 
promise impossible. 

Charles had conceived a violent dislike to Presby- 

1 Sharpe's notes to Kirkton's " History of the Church of Scot- 
land," pp. 48-9. See also Wishart's " Memoirs of Montrose." 



Chapter II 31 

terianism, and with his experiences of it the dislike 
was not unnatural. It was not, he told Burnet, a 
religion for gentlemen, and he found few among his 
court to contradict him. Scarcely had he settled 
himself in his capital when the Presbyterians were 
upon him. Sharp had already been some months in 
London as ambassador of the moderate party, the party 
of the old Resolutioners. But an easy way of recon- 
ciling Sharp's conscience was soon found. It is not pre- 
cisely clear when the bargain was struck which was to 
convert the chosen champion of the Presbyterian Church 
into an archbishop, but struck it was, and in no long 
time. He had by Monk's advice visited Charles at 
Breda, and some suppose that the first interview com- 
pleted the transformation. If so, he managed to delude 
his party very skilfully. His letters to the Assembly, 
though the light of subsequent events enables us to 
translate them more clearly than was possible at the 
time, were full of wise counsel, of apparently honest 
confessions of the many difficulties he foresaw in the 
way, and of protestations of fidelity and firmness which 
were no less implicitly believed. " I told him," said his 
colleague Robert Douglas, a man of very different 
stamp, when Sharp went up to London later for his 
ordination, " I told him the curse of God would be on 
him for his treacherous dealing ; and that I may speak 
my heart of this man, I profess I did no more suspect 
him in reference to Prelacy than I did myself." l 

Meanwhile the extreme party had not been idle. 
It will be perhaps most convenient henceforth to dis- 

1 " The Lauderdale Papers." The most important passages in 
Sharp's letters will be found in Burton's history, vii. pp. 129-1 16. 



3 2 Cla verhouse 

tinguish them as Covenanters : to call them Whigs, 
as Burnet and other historians of the time call them, 
would not convey to modern ears the significance it had 
for their contemporaries. Even those stern and un- 
bending Tories of whom Mr. Gladstone was once the 
spokesman have long ceased to regard the men who are 
still sometimes called Whigs as the most fanatical 
members of the body politic. It would be no mere 
fanciful application of modern terms to distinguish 
the two parties of the Scottish Church as Liberals 
and Eadicals ; but it will for many reasons be best 
henceforth to write of them as Presbyterians and 
Covenanters. 

The Covenanters, then, had not been idle. Shortly 
after the Restoration they had, through a deputation of 
their elders and ministers, called upon their brethren of 
the Church to unite with them in an address to the 
King, praying him, as a member of the Covenant with 
themselves, to remember his obligations to that sacred 
institution and zealously to prosecute its blessed work 
in all his three kingdoms. Toleration in things religious 
was especially denounced as a vast mischief disguised 
under the specious pretence of liberty for tender con- 
sciences. Schismatics were to be stamped out as 
sternly as Papists and Prelatists ; and by Schismatics 
were meant all men, members of~ their own Church no 
less than of others, who ventured to differ from them 
on any point of doctrine whatsoever. 

The Committee of Estates, which had resumed its 
sittings, did not like the job. They called the depu- 
tation a private meeting of some protesting ministers, 
and clapped the leaders into prison. 



Chapter II 33 

A government had now been formed for Scotland. 
Middleton was Lord High Commissioner, a soldier of 
fortune who had been raised to the peerage for the 
occasion. He was also named commander-in-chief of 
the forces and governor of Edinburgh Castle. With 
him were associated Glencairn as Lord Chancellor, 
Lauderdale as Secretary of State, Eothes as President 
of the Council, and Crawford as Lord Treasurer. The 
first proceeding of this Parliament, known in the 
gossip of the time as the Drunken Parliament from 
the too frequent condition of its chiefs, was to pass a 
Rescissory Act, repealing all measures that had be- 
come law since the year 1633, including even those 
passed by the Parliament professing the authority of 
Charles himself. This was followed by an Act " concern- 
ing religion and Church government," in which, after 
some pious but vague protestations of the royal design 
to " encourage the exercise of religion both public and 
private, and to suppress all profaneness and disorderly 
walking," it was promised that the administration by 
sessions, presbyteries, and synods would not for the 
present be interfered with. That present, however, 
soon passed. On May 27th, two days before the anniver- 
sary of the Restoration of the Monarchy, the Act for 
the Restoration of Episcopacy was made law. A pre- 
vious Act had ordained May 29th to be kept holy ; and 
the opposition taken to this by those who objected to 
all holidays as idolatrous had in turn produced a mea- 
sure which practically marks the beginning of that 
system of vague bullying, as Dr. Burton has happily 
called it, which w r as in no long time to pass into a per- 
secution anything but vague. On December 15th, in 

D 



34 Claverhouse 

Westminster Abbey, Sharp was consecrated Primate of 
Scotland, and at the same time Fair foul was raised to 
the see of Glasgow, Hamilton to the see of Galloway, 
and the good and gentle Leighton to the see of Dun- 
blane. 

Meanwhile the English Parliament had by its Navi- 
gation Act crushed for the time the short-lived hopes of 
Scottish commerce, and was now busy with an Act of 
Indemnity. This had been practically one of the con- 
ditions of the Restoration, but Scotland had not been 
included in the bargain. Argyle was the first to suffer 
from the omission. He had gone up to London to pay 
his court to the new King, but had been refused an 
audience. He was arrested, and, after a short sojourn 
in the Tower, sent back to Edinburgh to stand his trial 
for high treason before the Estates. He was found 
guilty and beheaded in the High Street on May 27th, 
1661, two days after the anniversary of the more 
shameful death which he had helped to bring upon 
Montrose. As he had been expressly pardoned during 
the King's short reign in Scotland for all acts committed 
by him against the Crown up to the year 1657, and as 
his accusers could find no evidence of communications 
with the Parliament after that time, he must have been 
acquitted had it not been for Monk, who at the last 
moment produced certain letters written by Argyle to 
him when acting for Cromwell. Johnstone of Warriston 
was another victim, whom, like Argyle, it was no hard 
matter for judges who had a mind that way to bring 
within the compass of the law of treason. He, however, 
managed to get across to the Continent before he could 
be arrested. He was tried and condemned in his ab- 



Chapter II 35 

sence. After two years of painful shifts and wander- 
ings he was tracked down in France by a man known 
as Crooked-back Murray, and sent back to his fate. A 
third victim was James Guthrie, the most vehement 
and active of the Covenanters, the framer of the original 
Remonstrance and author of a seditious pamphlet called 
" The Causes of the Lord's Wrath." With him would 
probably have suffered Samuel Rutherford, a minister 
as zealous as Guthrie, but of more education and 
manners. Fortunately for him, he died before the reign 
of punishment began ; and the Government was forced 
to content itself with ordering his book " Lex, Rex," to 
be burned by the hangman at the Cross of Edinburgh 
and at the gate of the University of Saint Andrews, 
where he had been Professor of Divinity. In 1662, an 
Act of Indemnity was made law, by which future punish- 
ment for the past was adjusted by a scale of fines. 

Close on the heels of the Act of Indemnity followed 
one demanding from all persons holding any office of 
public trust a public abjuration of the Covenant, and 
another requiring all clergymen who had been appointed 
since 1649 to receive collation from the bishop of their 
diocese. Those who did not obey were, after a short 
respite, expelled from their parishes. Those who obeyed 
were regarded by their congregations as backsliders and 
self-seekers. Three hundred and fifty ministers were 
driven with their families from their homes in the depth 
of winter ; and to supply their places new ministers were 
appointed, popularly known as the King's Curates. 
Another Act required attendance at the parish church 
on penalty of a fine graduated according to the rank of 
the absentee. Finally, to crown all, the Solemn League 

D 2 



36 Cla verhouse 

and Covenant was publicly burned at the market-cross 
of Edinburgh ; and an aggravated copy of the English 
Five-mile Act against Non-jurors, known as the Mile 
Act, was passed, prohibiting all recusant clergymen 
from residing within twenty miles of their old parishes, 
within six miles of Edinburgh or any cathedral town, 
and within three miles of any royal burgh. The punish- 
ment for transgressing this law was to be the same as 
that for sedition. 

Enough has now been said to show the nature of 
the bullying adopted by the Government. Over the 
years which still lie between us and the entry of Claver- 
house on the stage I must pass more rapidly. 

In 1663 Rothes succeeded Middleton as commis- 
sioner. The latter had been rash enough to measure 
his strength with Lauderdale, and had been signally 
worsted. To complete the legislative machinery a Con- 
venticle Act was passed this year, declaring all assemblies 
of more than five persons, besides members of the family,, 
unlawful and seditious. As most of their congregations 
had followed the expelled ministers into the wilderness,, 
this new law so mightily increased the labours of the 
authorities that it was found necessary to institute a 
new tribunal of justice for the especial treatment of 
ecclesiastical offences. This was no less than a renewal 
of that old Court of High Commission which had been 
abolished by the Long Parliament twenty years before 
to the joy of the whole nation. To strengthen its hands 
a body of troops was sent down into the western shires, 
now the stronghold of the Covenant, to impose and exact 
the fines ordained by the Commission. Their leader was 
Sir James Turner, a man of some education, but rough 



Chapter II 37 

and brutal. He had served on the Continent under 
Gustavus Adolphus, had fought under Leslie in the 
Presbyterian ranks, and had accompanied Hamilton 
with the Engagers into England. Turner, in his own 
memoirs, declares that he not only did not exceed his 
orders, but was even lenient beyond his commission. 
When, a few years later, in a momentary fit of indul- 
gence, his acts were called in question by the Privy 
Council, the evidence hardly served to establish his 
assertion. 

At length the West rose. On November 13th, 1666, 
four countrymen came into the little village of Dairy, 
in Galloway, in search of refreshment. There they 
found a few soldiers, driving before them a body of 
peasants to thresh out the corn of an old man who 
would not pay his fines. There was an argument and 
a scuffle : a pistol was fired and a soldier fell : the 
rest yielded. It was now too late to go back. Turner 
was posted at Dumfries with a considerable sum of 
money in his charge. It was determined to seize him. 
The four champions had now been joined by some fifty 
horsemen and a large body of unmounted peasants. 
Turner was made prisoner ; and the money restored 
to the service of those from whose pockets it had been 
originally drawn. 

The number of the insurgents had now risen to 
three thousand. They determined to march on Edin- 
burgh, thinking to gather recruits on the way; but 
when they came within five miles of the city their 
hearts failed them. The weather was bitterly cold : pro- 
visions and arms were scarce : the peasantry of the more 
cultivated districts had proved either lukewarm to the 



38 Claverhouse 

cause or openly hostile : no recruits had come in, and 
their own ranks were growing daily thinner. At length 
they turned on their tracks and made once more for 
their western fastnesses. But they had now to reckon 
with a more dangerous foe than Turner. 

The garrison in Edinburgh was commanded by 
Thomas Dalziel, a ferocious old soldier who had learned 
his trade in the Eussian wars. His dress was as un- 
couth as his manners, and he wore a long white bushy 
beard that no steel had been suffered to touch since the 
death of the first Charles. 1 With all the regulars he 
could muster Dalziel was quickly after the fugitives. 
He came up with them on Bullion Green, a ridge of 
the Pentland Hills. Though now numbering scarce a 
thousand men, the Covenanters were strongly posted, 
and defended themselves bravely. The royal troops 
were twice driven back before they could carry the 
ridge, and night had fallen before the insurgents were 
fairly broken. The slaughter was not great ; and it is 
significant of the unpopularity of their cause that the 
fugitives suffered more from the Lothian peasantry than 
from the victorious soldiers. 

The Government could now assume the virtue of 
those who are summoned to quell an open rebellion. 
Dalziel was put in command of the insurgent districts, 
and his little finger was indeed found thicker than 
Turner's loins. Twenty men were hanged on one 
gibbet in Edinburgh and many others in various parts 
of the country : crowds were shipped off to the planta- 
tions : torture was freely applied, and the ingenious 
devices of the boot and the thumbkin were in daily re- 
1 " Memoirs of Captain John Creichton," pp. 57-9. 



Chapter II 39 

quisition. 1 Dalziel was in his element. A prisoner re- 
viled him at the council board for " a Muscovy beast 
who roasted men." The old savage struck the man 
with the hilt of his sword so fiercely in the mouth that 
the blood gushed out. 

At length there came a lull. Weary of the useless 
butchery, which, hitherto, they had not perhaps fully 
realised, the English Government determined to see 
if indulgence could persuade where persecution was 
powerless to force. Orders to that effect were sent up 
to Edinburgh. The soldiers were withdrawn from the 
western shires. Sharp was bidden to retire to his see. 
Lauderdale took the place of Eothes as commissioner. 

The character of Lauderdale is one of the most 
curious problems of the time. In his youth he had 
been as zealous for the Covenant as he now appeared 
to be zealous for Episcopacy. Hence some have sup- 
posed that his real design was by favouring the intole- 
rance of the bishops to bring them to discomfiture, 
and to re-establish on their ruin the old Presbyterian 
Church, for which, despite the profligacy of his life and 
conversation, he was still believed to entertain as much 
veneration as he was capable of feeling for any form of 
religion. But whatever may have been his regard for 
the old Covenant of his youth, he was set as a rock 
against the men who were now as much opposed to any 
moderate observance of Presbyterian worship as the 
most inveterate Malignant at Whitehall. 

1 The torture of the thumbkin is said to have been introduced into 
Scotland by Lord Perth, who had seen it practised in Kussia. But, 
according to Fountainhall, something very like it had been previously 
known under the homely name of " Pilliwincks," or " Pilniewjnks," 



40 Claverhouse 

The first Indulgence was passed in 1669, in favour 
of the ministers whom the Act of 1662 had driven from 
their parishes. Such as had since that time kept from 
open violation of the law were now to be reinstated in 
their livings where vacant. The manse and the glebe 
were to be theirs as formerly, but the stipend was not 
to be renewed. These terms were accepted by some 
forty or fifty clergymen. By the advice of the gentle 
Leighton, who almost alone among his brethren seems 
at this time to have dared, or to have been even 
willing, to counsel tolerance, a deputation, nicknamed 
" the Bishop's Evangelists," was sent into the West to 
preach the doctrine of this Indulgence. The pious 
crusade was in vain. The failure of the Pentland rising 
and its terrible sequel had turned those stubborn hearts 
to madness. Their weaker brethren were now classed 
with the apostate Sharp and the butcher Dalziel ; and the 
Indulgence was declared a snare for the soul far more 
deadly than any torture the Government could devise 
for the body. Nor, if time could have strengthened 
Leighton's hands, was time allowed him. Following 
close upon the Indulgence came a fresh Act, now making 
not only all field-preaching a capital offence, but even 
laying heavy penalties on any exercise of the Pres- 
byterian worship except under an Indulged minister. 
This again was soon followed by a fresh law against 
Intercommuning — that is to say, against all who should 
offer even the simplest act of common charity to a 
Covenanter — and promising large rewards to all who 
should give information against them or their protectors. 
By this law it is said that thousands of both sexes, 
including many persons of rank, suffered severely ; and 



Chapter II 41 

from it sprang a curious incident in the miserable 
history of this time. 

An order was issued to the landed gentry of Eenfrew 
and Ayr, the shires where the disaffection was strongest, 
requiring them to give bail that their servants and 
tenants should not only abstain from personal attend- 
ance at conventicles, but also from all intercourse with 
intercommuned persons. The gentry answered that 
such assurance was impossible. It was not, they said, 
within the compass of their power to do this thing. 
The reply from Edinburgh was short and conclusive : 
if the landlords could not keep order in their districts, 
order must be kept for them. A body of English 
troops had already been moved up to the border and 
an Irish force collected at Belfast ; but a more ingenious 
mode of punishment was now devised. Since the 
barbarous excesses of the Highland clans under Mon- 
trose, it had become an acknowledged breach of the 
rules of civilised warfare to employ men who, like the 
Red Indians used in our own American wars, were 
amenable to no discipline and recognised no principles 
of humanity. Eight thousand of these savages were 
now let loose on the disobedient Lowlanders. The re- 
sult was, indeed, not all that had been anticipated at 
Edinburgh. The Council had naturally enough ex- 
pected that the descent of these plaided barbarians would 
be the signal for a general insurrection, which would 
relieve them of their troubles as certainly and much 
more conveniently than Dalziel's dragoons and Perth's 
thumbkins. While Highlander and Lowlander were 
cutting each other's throats, Lauderdale and his 
colleagues would have ample leisure to decide on the 



42 Cla verhouse 

apportionment of the booty. 1 In this, however, they 
were disappointed No armed resistance was offered. 
During the two months these marauders lived at free 
quarters, without any distinction between friend and foe, 
on a land which, compared with their own barren moors 
and mountains, was a paradise flowing with milk and 
honey, only one life was lost, and that the life of a 
Highlander. At length the scandal became too great 
even for Lauderdale. Hamilton, who, like his brother 
before him, had always stood by the Crown, went up 
to London with several gentlemen of rank to protest 
against a tyranny which they vowed was that of Turks 
rather than Christians. According to one account, the 
King would not see them : according to another, he 
admitted Hamilton to an interview, and, after hearing 
his protest, owned that many bad things had been done 
in Scotland, but none, so far as he could see, contrary to 
his interests. It was clear, however, that in this matter 
Lauderdale had gone too far. The Highlanders were 
ordered to return to their homes. They returned accord- 
ingly, laden with spoil such as they had never dreamed 
of, and of the use of a large part of which they were 
as ignorant as a Red Indian or a negro. 2 

1 " Duke Lauderdale's party depended so much on this that they 
began to divide, in their hopes, the confiscated estates among them, 
so that on Valentine's Day, instead of drawing mistresses they drew 
estates." — Burnet, ii. 26. 

2 " When the Highlanders went back one would have thought 
they had been at the sacking of some besieged town, by their bag- 
gage and luggage. They were loaded with spoil. They carried 
away a great many horses and no small quantity of goods out of 
merchants' shops, whole webs of linen and woollen cloth, some silver 
plate bearing the names and arms of gentlemen. You would have 



Chapter II 43 

The departure of the Highland host leaves the stage 
free for Olaverhouse. It was at this crisis he returned 
to Scotland, and here this summary of one of the most 
miserable chapters in British history may fitly end. 

seen them with loads of bedclothes, carpets, men and women's 
wearing clothes, pots, pans, gridirons, shoes and other furniture 
whereof they had pillaged the country." — Wodrow, ii. 413. 



44 Cla verhouse 



CHAPTER III. 

Clavekhouse was not left long in idleness. In 1664, 
the year of the first Indulgence, it had been determined 
to withdraw the regular troops altogether from Scotland, 
leaving their place to be supplied by the local militia, 
which was now practically raised to the condition of a 
standing army and, contrary to immemorial law, placed 
under the immediate authority of the Crown. But the 
bishops and their clergy had demurred. They had little 
fancy for being left with no other protection than a 
half-disciplined rabble, who, ready as they might be to 
act against their troublesome countrymen, had no more 
respect for a lawn sleeve than for a homespun jerkin. A 
few troops of regular cavalry were therefore retained, 
and one regiment of Foot Guards. The former were 
commanded by Athole, the latter by Linlithgow. To- 
wards the end of 1677 a fresh troop of cavalry was 
raised, and the command given to" the young Marquis 
of Montrose, grandson to him who had died on the 
scaffold and kinsman to Claverhouse. 

Claverhouse applied to him for employment, and it 
appears from Montrose's answer that the application 
had been warmly backed by the Duke of York. " You 
cannot imagine," runs the letter, "how overjoyed I 



Chapter III 45 

should be to have any employment at my disposal that 
were worthy of your acceptance ; nor how much I am 
ashamed to offer you anything so far below your merit 
as that of being my lieutenant ; though I be fully per- 
suaded that it will be a step to a much more considerable 
employment, and will give you occasion to confirm the 
Duke in the just and good opinion which I do assure 
you he has of you." The writer goes on to say that 
he himself was expecting instant promotion, and to 
promise his kinsman a share in whatever fortune might 
befall him : none but gentlemen, he adds, are to ride in 
his troop. The offer was accepted, and the promotion 
was not long delayed. 

The Indulgence had failed, as by some at least of 
those who had countenanced it it had been expected to 
fail. The Opposition, led at Edinburgh by Hamilton 
and Argyle, and backed in London by Monmouth and 
Shaftesbury, which had for some time past been work- 
ing openly against Lauderdale, had also for the moment 
failed. The Commissioner's hands were strong. With 
the King and the Duke of York at his back, and, in 
Edinburgh, Sharp, Burnet, and the majority of the 
Episcopalian clergy, together with all the needy nobles 
who loved best to fish in troubled waters, Lauderdale 
could afford, as he thought then, to laugh at all 
opposition. To assume that his design had been from 
the first to goad the West into open rebellion affords, 
indeed, a simple explanation of a policy that in its 
persistent unwisdom and brutality seems strangely 
irrational and monstrous, even for such times and men. 
But it is rash to take any policy as certain in those 
dark and crooked councils, unless it be — as probably in 



46 Claverhouse 

Lauderdale's case it was, and as it assuredly was in the 
case of most of his creatures — the policy of personal 
aggrandisement. At any rate, after the failure of 
the Indulgence had been made clear even to those 
hopeful spirits who still, with Leighton, had believed 
it possible to efface years of wrong by a few grudg- 
ing concessions, the cruel game was renewed with 
fresh vigour. The Highlanders, indeed, had gone, but 
their place was now to be filled by a more dangerous 
because a more disciplined foe. Orders were given to 
raise three new troops of cavalry for special service in 
Scotland. The Earls of Home and Airlie were chosen 
by Lauderdale to command two of these troops : the 
third was, at the King's express desire, given to Claver- 
house. At the same time, Athole, who was now in 
opposition with Hamilton and Argyle, was superseded 
by Montrose, and Linlithgow named commander-in- 
chief of all the royal forces in Scotland. 

Claverhouse now for fche first time steps in his own 
person on the stage of Scottish history. Eleven years 
later, in 1689, he passes off it for ever. It is with the tale 
of that brief time, so crowded with action, so variously 
recorded, that we shall be from this point concerned. 

He was now in his thirty-fifth year. Confused and 
conflicting as the witnesses of his life and character 
may be, of the man himself as he looked to the eyes of 
his contemporaries there is the clearest testimony. 
Over the mantelpiece of Scott's study in Castle Street 
hung the only picture in the room — a portrait of Claver- 
house. An original portrait Lockhart calls it, but which 
of the five portraits engraved in Napier's volumes it 
may have been, if any of them, I cannot tell. All these 



Chapter III 47 

engravings, with a unanimity not common in the por- 
traiture of the time, show the same face : a face of 
delicate, almost feminine beauty, framed in the long full 
love-locks of the period. 1 The eyes are large and dark, 
the figure small but well made, and the general expres- 
sion of the countenance one of almost boyish smoothness 
and simplicity. His manners were gentle and courteous, 
though reserved : his habit of life was, as has been 
already said, singularly decorous : he was scrupulous in 
the observance of all religious ordinances. After his death 
an old Presbyterian lady, who had lodged below him 
in Edinburgh, told Lochiel's biographer how astonished 
she had been to find one of his profession so regular in 
his devotions. In truth, one of the most curious, and 
at the same time one of the most indisputable, points 
in the life of this singular man is the contrast between 
those public actions which have had so large a share 
in mo aiding the popular impression, and his private 
character and conduct. And not less curious is the con- 
trast between the reality of his personal appearance and 
the counterfeit presentment likely to be fostered by a 
too liberal adherence to that impression. It would be 
difficult to imagine a more complete surprise than awaits 
those who turn for the first time from the stern, brutal, 
and profane soldier of the historian's page to the high- 
bred and graceful gentleman of the painter's canvas. 

Claverhouse seems to have received his commission 
in the autumn of 1678. The earliest of his letters 

1 It is said that he used to tend these curls with very particular 
care, attaching small leaden weights to them at night to keep them 
in place, — a custom which, I am informed, has in these days been 
revived by some dandies of the other sex. 



48 Cla verhouse 

extant is dated from Moffat, a small town in the north 
of Dumfriesshire, on December 28th. It is addressed to 
Lord Linlithgow, and contains this significant passage : 
" On Tuesday was eight days, and Sunday there were 
great field-conventicles just by here, with great con- 
tempt of the regular clergy, who complain extremely 
when I tell them I have no order to apprehend anybody 
for past misdemeanours." l And this scrupulous observ- 
ance of his orders, at a time when a little excess of zeal 
was unlikely to be regarded as a very serious blunder, 
is yet more strikingly illustrated in his next letter, 
written a week later from Dumfries. In that town, 
at the southern end of the bridge over the Mth, the 
charity of some devout Covenanting ladies had lately 
set up a large meeting-house. The clergy, as wild 
against the Covenanters as Lauderdale himself, were 
very importunate with Claverhouse to demolish this 
hotbed of disaffection; but he, though he confessed 
privately to his chief his annoyance at seeing a con- 
venticle held with impunity " at our nose," answered all 
importunities with a calm reference to his orders. The 
southern end of the bridge was in Galloway, and in 
Galloway his commission did not run. The authority 
of the Deputy-Sheriff of the shire was therefore called 

1 This very much bears out Burnet's complaint against the Epis- 
copal clergy in Scotland, which has been so strenuously denied by 
Creichton. " The clergy used to speak of that time as the poets do 
of the golden age. They never interceded for any compassion to 
their people ; nor did they take care to live more regularly, or to 
labour more carefully. They looked on the soldiery as their patrons ; 
they were ever in their company, complying with them in their ex- 
cesses ; and, if they were not much wronged, they rather led them 
into them than checked them for them." — " History of My Own 
Time," i. 334. 



Chapter III 49 

into play, and with his countenance the offending 
building was quickly razed to the ground. In his re- 
port of this business Claverhouse writes : — " My Lord, 
since I have seen the Act of Council, the scruple I had 
about undertaking anything without the bounds of 
these two shires is indeed frivolous, but was not so 
before. For if there had been no such act, it had not 
been safe for me to have done anything but what my 
order warranted ; and since I knew it not, it was to me 
the same thing as if it had not been. And for my 
ignorance of it, I must acknowledge that till now, in 
any service I have been, I never inquired further in the 
laws than the orders of my superior officers.' 7 This will 
not be the only occasion on which Claverhouse will be 
found keeping strictly within the lines of his commis- 
sion, instead of, as he has been so frequently charged 
with doing, wantonly and savagely exceeding it. 

This Deputy-Sheriff (or Steward, as the phrase then 
ran) needs a word to himself, both on his own account, 
as representing a certain phase of character unfortu- 
nately too common to the time, and as the real author 
of many of the cruel deeds of which Claverhouse so 
long has borne the blame. Sir Robert Grierson of Lag 
was regarded in his own district with an energy of 
hatred to which even the terror inspired by Claverhouse 
gave place, and which has survived to a time within 
the memory of men still living. In the early years 
of this century the most monstrous traditions of his 
cruelty were still current, and are not yet wholly ex- 
tinct. In a vaulted chamber of the house in which 
he lived, on the English road some three miles south of 
Dumfries, is still shown an iron hook from which he is 



5 o Cla ver house 

said to have hung his Covenanting prisoners; and a 
hill in the neighbourhood is still pointed out as that 
down which he used, for his amusement, to send the 
poor wretches rolling in a barrel filled with knife-blades 
and iron spikes, — an ingenious form of torture, commonly 
supposed to have been invented by the Carthaginians 
two thousand years ago for the particular benefit of 
a Roman Consul. The dark and mysterious legend 
of Sir Robert Redgauntlet, with which Wandering 
Willie beguiled the way to Brokenburn-foot, was a 
popular tradition of Sir Robert Grierson, or Lag (as, in 
the familiar style of the day he was more commonly 
called) in Scott's own lifetime : the fatal horseshoe, the 
birth-mark of all the Redgauntlet line, was believed to 
be conspicuous on the foreheads of every true Grierson 
in moments of anger ; and it was a grandson of old Lag 
himself who sat to Scott for the portrait of the elder 
Redgauntlet, the rugged and dangerous Herries of 
Birrenswark. Within the last fifty years it was a 
custom of Halloween in many of the houses in Dum- 
friesshire and Galloway to celebrate by a rude theatrical 
performance the evil memory of the Laird of Lag. 1 

Born of a family which had held lands in Dumfries- 
shire since the fifteenth century, and had figured at 
various times on the troubled stage of Scottish history, 
Lag was undoubtedly a man of somB parts and capacity 
for public affairs, but coarse, cruel and brutal beyond 
even the license of those times. The Covenanting his- 
torians charge him with vices such as even they shrank 
from attributing to Claverhouse ; and, careful as it is 
always necessary to be in taking the evidence of such 

1 " The Laird of Lag," by Lieut.-Col. Fergusson, pp. 7-11. 



Chapter III 51 

witnesses, it is abundantly clear that even these in- 
genious romancists would have been hard put to it to 
stain the memory of Lag. Later historians have been 
sometimes less careful in distinguishing between the 
two men. At least in one striking instance, the 
misdeeds of this ruffian have been circumstantially 
charged to the account of his more famous and im- 
portant colleague. 

It will be remembered that in the picture Macaulay 
has drawn of Olaverhouse the soldiers under his com- 
mand, and by implication Claverhouse himself, figure 
as relieving their sterner duties by a curious form of 
relaxation. They would call each other, he says, by 
the names of devils and damned souls, mocking in 
their revels the torments of hell. The authority for this 
surprising statement is Robert Wodrow, who was not 
born when Claverhouse returned to Scotland, and whose 
history of the Scottish Church was not published till 
more than thirty years after the battle of Killiecrankie. ] 
Wodrow's work is very far from being the contemptible 
thing some apologists for Claverhouse would have us 
believe; but he is not a witness whose unsupported 
testimony it is always safe to take for gospel-truth. 
He wrote at a time when the naturally romantic ima- 
gination of the Scottish peasantry, stimulated by the 
memories of old men who had known the evil times, 
had largely embellished the facts he set himself to 
chronicle ; and following the fashion of his day (indeed, 
as one may say, the fashion of many historians who 
cannot plead Wodrow's excuse), he was not always 

1 His " History of the Sufferings of the Church of Scotland " 
was first published in 1721. 

e 2 



5 2 Cla verhouse 

careful to separate the romance from the reality, 
even where the latter might have better served his 
turn. But considering all the circumstances — the 
circumstances of the time, of his subject, and of his 
own prepossessions, he is a writer whom it is impos- 
sible to disregard ; and, indeed, compared with the 
other Covenanting chroniclers he stands apart as the 
most sober and impartial of historians. Where he got 
the story that has been so ingeniously fashioned into 
an indictment against Claverhouse is not clear. The 
passage runs as follows : — " Dreadful were the acts of 
wickedness done by the soldiers at this time, and 
Lag was as deep as any. They used to take to them- 
selves, in their cabals, the names of devils and persons 
they supposed to be in hell, and with whips to lash one 
another, as a jest upon hell. But I shall draw a veil 
over many of their dreadful impieties I meet with in 
papers written at this time." This is not exactly the 
sort of evidence any judge but a hanging judge would 
allow, though it would serve well enough the turn of a 
prosecutor. It is at any rate evidence which no one, 
with any experience of the sort of gossip the annalists 
of the Covenant were content to call history, would 
care to take seriously. But whatever its value may 
really be, so far as it goes it is evidence not against 
Claverhouse but against Lag. It is clear from Wodrow 
that the story refers not to the royal soldiers but to the 
local militia ; and a writer a little later than Wodrow 
makes it still more clear that the men supposed thus 
to have disported themselves in their cups were those 
commanded by Lag. John Howie, an Ayrshire peasant 
and a Cameronian of the strictest sect, who was not 



Chapter III S3 

born till fourteen years after Wodrow had published his 
history, has given Lag a particular place in the Index 
Expurgatorius of his " Heroes for the Faith." There 
we may read how this "prime hero for the promoting 
of Satan's kingdom " would, " with the rest of his boon 
companions and persecutors, feign themselves devils, 
and those whom they supposed in hell, and then whip 
one another, as a jest upon that place of torment." 
Olaverhouse, as has been already shown, was himself 
singularly averse to all rioting and drunkenness, as 
well as to profane amusements of every kind ; and, as 
he was indisputably one of the sternest disciplinarians 
who ever took or gave orders, it is unlikely that he 
would have countenanced any such unseemly revels in 
the men under his command, with whom, moreover, 
he was in these years thrown into unusually close 
personal contact. But, in truth, the story, so far as he 
is concerned, is too foolish to need any solemn refuta- 
tion. It has been only examined at this length as fur- 
nishing a signal instance of the recklessness with which 
the misdeeds of others have been fathered on him. 1 

The work Claverhouse now found to do must have 
been singularly distasteful to one who had seen war on 
a great scale under such captains as William and 
Conde. It was at once undignified and dangerous ; 
and though danger was all to his taste, it was one thing 
to risk one's life in open battle with enemies worthy 
of a soldier's steel, and another and very different thing 
to run the chance of a stray bullet from behind a 
haystack or through a cottage window. The line of 

1 This confusion was first pointed out by Aytoun in an appendix 
to the second edition of his " Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers." 



5 4 Cla verho use 

country he had to patrol (for his work was really little 
more than that) was all too large for the forces at his 
disposal. The enemies with whom he had mostly to 
deal were either old men or women, for the Covenanters 
were well supplied with intelligence, and generally had 
ample warning of his movements, quick and indefati- 
gable as they were. " If your lordship give me any new 
orders, I will beg they may be kept as secret as pos- 
sible, and sent for me so suddenly as the information 
some of the favourers of the fanatics are to send may 
be prevented." l And again : 

" I obeyed the orders about seizing persons in Galloway 
that very night I received it, as far as it was possible ; that 
is to say, all that was within forty miles, which is the most 
can be ridden in one night ; and of six made search for, I 
found only two, which are John Livingston, bailie of Kirk- 
cudbright, and John Black, treasurer there. The other two 
bailies were fled, and their wives lying above the clothes in 
the bed, and great candles lighted, waiting for the coming 
of the party, and told them, they knew of their coming, 
and had as good intelligence as they themselves ; and that 
if the other two were seized on, it was their own faults, 
that would not contribute for intelligence. And the truth 
is, they had time enough to be advertised, for the order was 
dated the 15th, and came not to my hands till the 20th. 
I laid the fellow in the guard that brought it, so soon as I 
considered the date, where he has lain ever since, and had 
it not been for respect to Mr. Maitland [Lauderdale's 
nephew] who recommended him to me I would have put 
him out of the troop with infamy." 2 

1 Claverhouse to Linlithgow, December 28th, 1678. These letters 
are all quoted from Napier's book. I have thought it better to give 
the date of the letter than the reference to the page. 

2 Claverhouse to Linlithgow, February 24th, 1679. 



Chapter III 55 

The letters written during the first months of his 
commission are full of warnings of this sort. And he 
had other complaints to make, which must have been 
still more against the grain. He was so inadequately 
supplied with money by the Council that he found it a 
hard matter to pay his men, and harder still to pay the 
country people for the necessary provisions and forage ; 
for, so far from quartering his men at large upon the 
peasantry, he seems, at any rate in those first months, 
to have been scrupulous to pay at the current rates 
for all he required to a degree that matches rather with 
the niceties of modern warfare than the customs of those 
rough times. 

In March Claverhouse was appointed Deputy-Sheriff 
of Dumfriesshire by a particular warrant from White- 
hall, and Andrew Bruce of Earlshall, one of his lieu- 
tenants, was nominated with him. This step gave 
great offence to Queensberry, who, as Sheriff of the 
shires of Dumfries and Annandale, by law held all such 
patronage in his own hand, and marks the beginning 
of the petty jealousy which from this time forward he 
seems to have shown to Claverhouse whenever he dared, 
and which rose afterwards, as we shall see, to a serious 
height. But Queensberry was no match for Lauderdale ; 
and Claverhouse was duly settled in his new office, 
which, while strengthening his hands and enabling 
him to dispense with many tedious formalities, at the 
same time considerably increased his labours. 

And so winter passed into spring, and still Claver- 
house found no work more worthy of him than patrolling 
the country, arranging for his men's quarters, examin- 
ing suspected persons, and endeavouring to persuade 



5 6 Cla verhouse 

the Government to leave him not entirely penniless. 
More than once he sent word to Edinburgh that he 
believed something serious was afoot. " I find," he 
writes to Linlithgow on April 21st, u Mr. Welsh is ac- 
customing both ends of the country to face the king's 
forces, and certainly intends to break out into open 
rebellion." This Welsh is a famous figure in Covenant- 
ing history. Grandson to a man whose name was long 
held in affectionate memory by his party as that of the 
" incomparable John Welsh of Ayr," and great-grandson 
to no less a hero than John Knox himself, he was on 
his own account a memorable man. He had inaugurated 
the first conventicle, and had ever since been zealous 
in promoting them and officiating at them among the 
wild hills and moorlands of the western shires, till his 
name had become a byword among the soldiers for his 
courage in braving and his skill in evading them. But 
though one of the most resolute and indefatigable of 
the ministers of the Covenant, he was also one of the 
most moderate and sensible. Had no one among them 
been more eager than he to carry the war into the 
enemy's country there had been no Both well Bridge. 
And, indeed, we shall find him seriously taken to task 
by the more extreme of the party as a backslider from 
the good cause for his endeavour to avert that disastrous 
affair. , 

Yet Claverhouse was right. Something very serious 
was soon to be afoot. During the last few weeks the 
Covenanters had been notoriously growing bolder. 
They did not always now, as hitherto, content them- 
selves with evading the soldiers : they became in their 
turn the aggressors* More than once an outlying 



Chapter III 57 

post of Claverhouse's men had been fired upon ; and 
on one occasion a couple of the dragoons had been 
savagely murdered in cold blood. Even Wodrow found 
himself forced to own that about this time " matters 
were running to sad heights among the armed followers 
of some of the field meetings." But the trouble did not 
arise through John Welsh. It came through a servant 
of the Crown who had been a sorer plague to his 
countrymen than a myriad of disaffected ministers. 

On May 5th, Lord Eoss l from Lanark, and on the 
6th Olaverhouse from Dumfries, sent in their despatches 
to the commander-in-chief at Edinburgh as usual. It is 
clear that neither of them had at that time heard any 
rumour of an event which had happened a few days pre- 
viously at no very great distance from their quarters. 
On May 2nd the Primate of Scotland had been dragged 
from his carriage as he was driving across an open 
heath three miles out of Saint Andrews, and murdered 
in open day before the eyes of his daughter. 

James Sharp, Archbishop of Saint Andrews, was at 
that time probably the best-hated man in Scotland. 
Like all renegades he was in no favour even with his 
own party, though Lauderdale found after trial that he 
could not dispense with his support. Even the mode- 
rate Presbyterians, who regarded the uncompromising 
Covenanters as the real cause of their country's 
troubles, looked askance upon Sharp, as the man 
whom they had chosen out of their number to save 

1 George, eleventh Lord Ross, was joined with Olaverhouse in 
the command of the western shires. He had married Lady Grizel 
Cochrane, daughter of the first Earl of Dundonald, and aunt of the 
future Lady Dundee. 



58 Claverhousr 

them and who had preferred to save himself. By 
the Covenanters themselves he was assailed with every 
form of obloquy as the Judas who had sold his God 
and his country for thirty pieces of silver, and who had 
hounded on the servants of the King to spill the blood 
of the saints. Yet his murder was but an accident. 
Eleven years before an attempt had, indeed, been made 
upon his life by one Mitchell, a fanatical and apparently 
half-witted preacher, who was after a long delay put to 
the torture and finally executed on a confession which 
he had been induced to make after a promise from the 
Privy Council that his life should be spared. It is said 
that Lauderdale would have spared him, but Sharp 
was so vehement for his death that the Duke dared not 
refuse. 

The chief promoters of the Archbishop's murder 
were Hackston of Rathillet, Russell of Kettle, and 
John Balfour of Burley, or, more correctly, of Kinloch. 
These three men were typical of the class who at 
this time began to come to the front among the 
Covenanters, and by their incapacity, folly, and bru- 
tality discredited and did their best to ruin a cause 
whose original justice had been already too much ob- 
scured by such parasites. It is impossible to believe 
that they, or such as they, were inspired by any strong 
religious feelings. Hackston and Bajfour were men of 
some fortune, who had been free-livers in their youth, 
and were now professing to expiate those errors by a 
gloomy and ferocious asceticism. Both had a grudge 
against Sharp. Balfour had been accused of malversa- 
tion in the management of some property for which he 
was the Archbishop's factor, and Hackston, his brother- 



Chapter III 59 

in-law, had been arrested as his bail and forced to make 
the money good. Russell, who has left a curiously 
minute and cold-blooded narrative of this murder, 1 was 
a man of headstrong and fiery temper. They had all 
those dangerous gifts of eloquence which, coarse and 
uncouth as it sounds to our ears, was, when liberally 
garnished with texts of Scripture, precisely such as to 
inflame the heated tempers of an illiterate peasantry 
to madness. It is important to distinguish men of 
this stamp from the genuine sufferers for conscience' 
sake. The latter men were, indeed, often wrought up 
by their crafty leaders to a pitch of blind and brutal 
fury which has done much to lessen the sympathy that 
is justly theirs. But they were at the bottom simple, 
sincere, and pious ; and they can at least plead the 
excuse of a long and relentless persecution for acts 
which the others inspired and directed for motives 
which it would be difficult, perhaps, to correctly analyse, 
but assuredly were not founded on an unmixed love 
either for their country or their faith. Stripped of the 
veil of religious enthusiasm which they knew so well 
how to assume, men of the stamp of Sharp's murderers 
were in truth no other than those brawling and selfish 
demagogues whom times of stir and revolution always 
have brought and always will bring to the front. There 
need, in these days, be no difficulty in understanding 
the characters of men who dress Murder in the cloak 
of Religion and call her Liberty. 

Every child knows the story of the tragedy on Magus 

1 Printed in Sharpe's edition of Kirkton's " History of the Church 
of Scotland." It differs in some, but not very important, points from 
the account printed in the same volume from Wodrow's manuscripts. 



60 Cla verhouse 

Moor. It will be enough here to remind my readers, 
once more, that it was no preconcerted plan, but a pure 
accident — or, as the murderers themselves called it, a 
gift from God. The men I have named, with a few 
others, were really after one Oarmichael, who had 
made himself particularly odious by his activity in 
collecting the fines levied on the disaffected. But 
Oarmichael, who was out hunting on the hills, had 
got wind of their design and made his way home by 
another route. As the party were about to separate 
in sullen disappointment, a messenger came to tell 
them that the Archbishop's coach was in sight on the 
road to Saint Andrews. The opportunity was too good 
to be lost. Hackston was asked to take the command, 
but declined, alleging his cause of quarrel with Sharp, 
which would, he declared, " mar the glory of the action, 
for it would be imputed to his particular revenge." 
But, he added, he would not leave them, nor " hinder 
them from what God had called them to." Upon this, 
Balfour said, " Gentlemen, follow me ; " and the whole 
party, some nine or ten in number, rode off after the 
carriage, which could be seen in the distance labour- 
ing heavily over the rugged track that traversed the 
lonely expanse of heath. How the butcher's work was 
done : how Sharp crawled on his knees to Hackston, 
saying, " You are a gentleman — you wjLll protect me," and 
how Hackston answered, " Sir, I shall never lay a hand 
on you " : how Balfour and the rest then drew their 
swords and finished what their pistols had begun ; and 
how the daughter was herself wounded in her efforts to 
cover the body of her father — these things are familiar 
to all. 



Chapter III 61 

From May 6th to 29th no letters from Claverhouse 
have survived ; but on the latter date he sent a short 
despatch from Falkirk, announcing his intention of 
joining his forces with Lord Ross to scatter a conven- 
ticle of eighteen parishes which, he had just received 
news, were about (on the following Sunday) to meet at 
Kilbryde Moor, four miles from Glasgow. The follow- 
ing Sunday was June 1st, on which day Claverhouse was 
indeed engaged with a conventicle ; but in a fashion 
very different from any he had anticipated. 



62 Claverhouse 



CHAPTER IV. 

The die was now fairly cast. In a general rising lay 
the only hope of safety for Sharp's murderers. Des- 
perate themselves, they determined to carry others with 
them along the same path, and by some signal show 
of defiance commit the party to immediate and irre- 
trievable action. The occasion for this was easily 
found. May 29th, the King's birthday, had been, as 
already mentioned, appointed as a general day of re- 
joicing for his restoration. This had from the first 
given offence as well to those members of the Pres- 
byterian Church who saw in his Majesty's return no 
particular cause for joy, as to those more ascetic spirits 
who objected on principle to all holidays. May 29th 
was therefore hailed as the day divinely marked, as 
it were, for the purpose on hand, a crowning challenge 
to the King's authority. 

The business was put in charge of Robert Hamilton, 
a man of good birth and education, but violent and rash, 
without any capacity for command and, if some of his 
own side may be trusted, of no very certain courage. 
With him went Thomas Douglas, one of the fire- 
breathing ministers, Balfour and Russell and some 
seventy or eighty armed men. Glasgow had been origi- 
nally chosen for the scene of operations ; but a day or 



Chapter IV 63 

two previously a detachment of Claverhouse's troopers 
had marched into that city from Falkirk, and the 
little town of Eutherglen, about two miles to the west 
of Glasgow, was chosen instead. 

On the afternoon of the 29th Hamilton and his 
party made their appearance in Eutherglen. They 
first extinguished the bonfire that was blazing in the 
King's honour ; and, having then lit one on their own 
account, proceeded solemnly to burn all the Acts of 
Parliament and Eoyal Proclamations that had been 
issued in Scotland since Charles's return. A paper was 
next read, containing a vigorous protest against all 
interferences of the English Government with the 
Presbyterian religion, and especially those subsequent 
to the Eestoration. This paper, which was styled the 
Declaration and Testimony of some of the true Pres- 
byterian party in Scotland, was then nailed to the 
market-cross of the little town, and the party withdrew. 
All this, be it remembered, was done within only two 
miles of the royal forces, some of whom, it is said, 
were actually spectators of the whole affair at scarce 
musket-shot's distance. It was fortunate for the party 
that Claverhouse was not in Glasgow at the time. 

He was then in Falkirk, from which place he had, 
as we have seen, written to Linlithgow on the very day 
of the Eutherglen business of a rumour he had heard 
of some particular gathering appointed for the follow- 
ing Sunday, June 1st. Though he did not believe it, 
he thought it well to join forces with Eoss in case 
there might be need for action. This was done at 
Glasgow on Saturday ; and at once Claverhouse set off 
for Eutherglen to inquire into the affair of the 29th. 



64 Cla verhouse 

As soon as he had got the names of the ringleaders he 
sent patrols out to scour the neighbourhood for them. 
A few prisoners were picked up, and among them one 
King, a noted orator of the conventicles, formerly 
chaplain to Lord Cardross, whose service he had left, 
it is said, on account of a little misadventure with one 
of the maid-servants. The troops halted for the night 
at Strathavon, and early next morning set off with their 
prisoners for Glasgow. On the way Olaverhouse deter- 
mined on " a little tour, to see if we could fall upon a 
conventicle," which, he ingenuously adds, " we did, little 
to our advantage." 

During his search for the Rutherglen men he had 
heard more of the plans for Sunday. It was clear 
something was in the air, and report named Loudon 
Hill as the place of business, a steep and rocky 
eminence marking the spot where the shires of Ayr, 
Lanark, and Renfrew meet. To Loudon Hill accordingly 
Olaverhouse turned his march, and soon found that 
rumour had for once not exaggerated. 

Two miles to the east of the hill lies the little 
hamlet and farm of Drumclog, even now but sparsely 
covered with coarse meadow-grass, and then no more 
than a barren stretch of swampy moorland. South and 
north the ground sloped gently down towards a marshy 
bottom through which ran a stream, or dyke, fringed 
with stunted alder-bushes. On the foot of the southern 
slope, across the dyke, the Covenanters were drawn up ; 
and the practised eye of Olaverhouse saw at a glance 
that they had gathered there not to pray but to fight. 
" When we came in sight of them," he wrote to Linlith- 
gow, " we found them drawn up in battle upon a most 



Chapter IV 65 

advantageous ground, to which there was no coming 
but through mosses and lakes. They were not preach- 
ing, and had got away all their women and children." l 
They were ranged in three lines : those who had fire- 
arms being placed nearest to the dyke, behind them a 
body of pikemen, and in the rear the rest, armed with 
scythes set on poles, pitchforks, goads and other such 
rustic weapons. On either flank was a small body of 
mounted men. Hamilton was in command : Burley 
had charge of the horse ; and among others present 
that day was William Cleland, then but sixteen years 
old, and destined ten years later to win a nobler title 
to fame by a glorious death at the head of his Came- 
ronians in the memorable defence of Dunkeld. 

As usual, it is impossible to estimate with any exact- 
ness the strength of either side. According to one of 
their own party, who was present, the Covenanters did 
not exceed two hundred and fifty fighting men, of whom 
fifty were mounted and the same proportion armed with 
guns. These numbers have been accepted, of course, 
by Wodrow, and also by Dr. Burton. But within a 
week this handful had, on Hamilton's own testimony, 
grown to six thousand horse and foot ; and though, no 
doubt, the success at Drumclog would have materially 
swelled the Covenanting ranks, if they were only two 
hundred and fifty on that day, the most liberal calcula- 
tion can hardly accept the numbers said to have been 
gathered on Glasgow Moor six days later. Probably, if 
we increase the former total and diminish the latter, we 

1 Claverhouse to Linlithgow, June 1st, 1679. This is the famous 
despatch which Scott says was spelled like a chambermaid's. The 
original is now among the Stow Manuscripts in the British Museum. 

F 



66 Cla verho use 

shall get nearer the mark ; but it is impossible to do more 
than conjecture. Sharpe, in the fragment printed by 
Napier, rates Hamilton's force at six hundred. Claver- 
house's own estimate was " four battalions of foot, and 
all well armed with fusils and pitchforks, and three 
squadrons of horse." His experience was more likely 
to serve him in such matters than the untrained cal- 
culations of men who were, moreover, naturally con- 
cerned to magnify the defeat of the King's troops as 
much as possible ; while it is clear from the tone of his 
own despatch, which is singularly literal and straight- 
forward, that he had no wish, and did not even con- 
ceive it necessary, to excuse his disaster. But here 
again the estimate helps us little, owing to the vague 
use of the terms battalion and squadron. For the same 
reason we can but guess at the strength of the royal 
force. In the writings of the time Claverhouse's 
command is indiscriminately styled a regiment and 
a troop. It is certain that he was the responsible offi- 
cer, so that, whatever its numerical strength, he stood 
to the body of men he commanded in the relation 
that a colonel stands to his regiment. But it is pro- 
bable that his regiment, with those commanded by 
Home and Airlie, were practically considered as the 
three troops of the Royal Scottish Life Guards of whom 
the young Marquis of Montrose was colonel. From 
a royal warrant of 1672, it appears that a troop of 
dragoons was rated at eighty men, exclusive of officers, 
and that a regiment was to consist of twelve troops. 
But it is hardly possible that this strength was ever 
reached. From a passage in the third chapter of 
Macaulay's history it does not seem as if the full 



Chapter IV 67 

complement of a regiment of cavalry can have much 
exceeded four hundred men ; but, I repeat, the indis- 
criminate use of the terms troop and regiment, battalion 
and squadron, makes all calculations theoretical and 
vague. 1 Scott puts the King's forces at Drumclog at 
two hundred and fifty men ; and, as a detachment 
had been left behind in garrison with Ross's men at 
Glasgow, this is probably not over the mark, if Macau- 
lay's estimate of a regiment be correct. He also, in the 
report Lord Evandale makes to his chief, rates the 
Covenanters at near a thousand fighting men, which 
would probably tally with Olaverhouse's estimate. But, 
whatever the strength of either side may have been, it 
is tolerably certain that the advantage that way was on 
the side of the Covenanters. 

The description of the fight in " Old Mortality" is 
an admirable specimen of the style in which Scott's 
genius could work the scantiest materials to his will. 
All contemporary accounts of the fray are singularly 
meagre and confused ; and, indeed, the art of describ- 
ing a battle was then very much in its infancy. It is 
difficult, from Claverhouse's own despatch, to get more 
than a general idea of the affair, which was probably 
after the first few minutes but an indiscriminate melee. 
No doubt it was his consciousness of some lack of clear- 
ness that inspired his apologetic postscript : " My Lord, 
I am so wearied and so sleepy that I have written this 
very confusedly." The flag of truce, which in the novel 
Claverhouse sends down under charge of his nephew 
Cornet Graham to parley with the Covenanters, was of 

1 Cannon's " Historical Kecords of the British Army " (Second 
Dragoons) : Macaulay's History, i. 305-8. 

f 2 



68 Cla verhouse 

Scott's own making, though it seems that a couple of 
troopers were despatched in advance to survey the 
ground. Nor does Claverhouse mention any kinsman 
of his, or any one of his name, as having fallen that 
day: the only two officers he specifies are Captain 
Blyth and Cornet Crafford, or Crawford, both of whom 
were killed by Hamilton's first fire. But though 
Claverhouse mentions no one of his own name, others 
do. By more than one contemporary writer one 
Eobert Graham is included among the slain. It is said 
that while at breakfast that morning in Strathavon 
he had refused his dog meat, promising it a fall meal 
off the Whigs' bodies before night ; " but instead of 
that," runs the tale, " his dog was seen eating his own 
thrapple (for he was killed) by several." Another 
version is, that the Covenanters, finding the name of 
Graham wrought in the neck of the shirt, savagely 
mangled the dead body, supposing it to be that of 
Claverhouse himself. 1 



1 Russell's account of Sharp's murder, Kirkton, p. 442. See 
also Creichton's Memoirs, though the captain was not present at 
the fight, having remained in garrison at Glasgow. In a Latin 
poem, " Bellum Bothuellianum," by Andrew Guild, now in the Advo- 
cates' Library at Edinburgh, are the following lines : 

" Turn rabiosa cohors, misereri nescia, stratos 
Invadit, laceratque viros : hie signif er, eheu ! 
Trajectus globulo, GraBmus, quo fortior alter 
Inter Scotigenas fuerat, nee justior ullus : 
Hunc manibus rapuere f eris, faciemque virilem 
Fcedarunt, lingua, auriculis, manibusque resectis 
Aspera diffuso spargentes saxa cerebro." 

The passage is quoted at length in the notes to "Old Mortality." 
Sharpe, in his notes to Kirkton, says, on the authority of Wodrow, 



Chapter IV 6g 

But to come from tradition to fact. The affair 
began with a sharp skirmish of musketry on both sides. 
To every regiment of cavalry there were then joined a 
certain proportion of dragoons who seem to have held 
much the position of our mounted infantry, men skilled 
in the use of firearms and accustomed to fight as well 
on foot as in the saddle. A party of these advanced in 
open order down the hill to the brink of the dyke and 
opened a smart fire on the Covenanters, who answered 
with spirit, but both in their weapons and skill were 
naturally far inferior to the royal soldiers. Meanwhile, 
some troopers had been sent out to skirmish on either 
flank, and to try for a crossing. This they could not 
find ; but, unable to manoeuvre in the swampy ground, 
found instead that their saddles were emptying fast. 
Then Hamilton, seeing that his men were no match at 
long bowls for the dragoons, and marking the confusion 
among the cavalry, gave the word to advance. By 
crossings known only to themselves Burley led the 
horse over the dyke on one flank, while young Cleland 
followed with the bulk of the foot on the other. Claver- 
house thereupon called in his skirmishers, and, ad- 
vancing his main body down the hill, the engagement 
became general. But in that heavy ground the foot- 
men had all the best of it. The scythes and pitchforks 
made sad work among the poor floundering horses. 
His own charger was so badly wounded that, in the 
rider's forcible language, "its guts hung out half an 
ell " ; yet the brave beast carried him safely out of the 

that Cornet Graham was shot by one John Alstoun, a miller's son, 
and tenant of Weir of Blackwood. This is not correct. There was 
a Cornet Graham so killed, but not till three years after Drumclog. 



70 Claverhouse 

press. 1 The troopers began to fall back, and Burley, 
coming up on sound ground with his horse, flung him- 
self on them so hotly that the retreat became something 
very like a rout. Claverhouse, to whose courage and 
energy that day his enemies bear grudging witness, 
did all that a brave captain could, but his men had 
now got completely out of hand. " I saved the stand- 
ards " (one of which had been for a moment taken) 
" and made the best retreat the confusion of our people 
would suffer." 80 he wrote to Linlithgow, but he made 
no attempt to disguise his defeat. He owns to having 
lost eight or ten men among the cavalry, besides 
wounded ; and the dragoons lost many more. Only five 
or six of the Covenanters seem to have fallen, among 
whom was one of Sharp's murderers. This does not 
speak very well for their opponents' fire ; but then we 
have only the testimony of their own historians to go 
by. Claverhouse himself could say no more than that 
"they are not come easily off on the other side, for 
I saw several of them fall before we came to the 
shock." 

Pell-mell went the rout over the hill and across the 
moorland to Strathavon, through which the Life Guards 

1 " With a pitchfork they made such an openeing in my rone 
horse's belly." Sir Walter, following tradition, has mounted Claver- 
house on a coal-black charger without a single white hair in its 
body, a present, according to the legends of the time, from the Devil 
to his favourite servant. See also Aytoun's fine ballad " The Burial 
March of Dundee " : 

" Then our leader rode among us 
On his war-horse black as night ; 
Well the Cameronian rebels 

Knew that charger in the fight." 



Chapter IV 71 

had marched but a few hours before in all their bravery. 
As their captain passed by the place where his prisoner 
of the morning, John King, was now lustily chanting 
a psalm of triumph, the reverend gentleman called out 
to him, with audacity worthy of Gabriel Kettledrummle, 
" to stay the afternoon sermon." At Strathavon the 
townspeople drew out to bar their passage, but the fear 
of their pursuers lent the flying troopers fresh heart : 
" we took courage," writes Claverhouse, " and fell to 
them, made them run, leaving a dozen on the place." 
Through Strathavon they clattered, and never drew 
rein till they found themselves safe in Glasgow among 
their own comrades. 

Fortunately the pursuit had slackened, or it might 
have gone ill with the garrison in Glasgow. Claver- 
house's men had no doubt fine tales to tell of the fury 
of the Whig devils behind them; and had Hamilton 
been strong enough in cavalry to enter the town at the 
heels of the flying troopers it is not likely that he 
would have met with much opposition. The pursuit, 
however, did not follow far. Thanksgivings had to be 
made for the victory, and the prisoners to be looked to. 
All these, according to Wodrow, were let go after 
being disarmed ; but Hamilton himself tells a very 
different tale. His orders had been strict that there 
should be no quarter that day ; but on his return from 
the pursuit he found that his orders had been disobeyed. 
Five prisoners had been dismissed, and were already 
out of his reach : two others were waiting while their 
captors debated on their fate. Then Hamilton, furious 
that any of " Babel's brats " should be let go, slew one 
of these with his own hand, to stay any such unreason- 



72 Claverhouse 

able spirit of mercy, "lest the Lord would not honour 
us to do much more for him." l 

That night the Covenanting captains stayed at 
Lord Loudon's house, where, though the master had 
deemed it prudent to keep out of the way, they were 
hospitably entertained by her ladyship. The next 
morning they continued their march to Glasgow. 

Claverhouse was ready for them. The town was too 
open a place to be properly barricaded, but he had caused 
some sort of breastwork to be raised near the market- 
cross as cover for his men, and patrols had been out 
since daybreak to watch Hamilton's movements. That 
worthy was reported to be dividing his men into two 
bodies, one of which presently marched on the town by the 
Gallowgate bridge, while the other took a much longer 
route by the High Church and College. It was thus 
possible to deal with the first before the latter could come 
to its assistance. This was very effectually done. About 
ten in the morning the attack was made by way of the 
bridge, led by Hamilton in person. 2 But the welcome 
which met them from the barricades was too warm for 
the Covenanters. They broke and fled at the first fire, 
Claverhouse and Eoss at the head of their men chasing 

1 Kirkton, 444, note. 

2 It was reported by some of his own party that as his men 
entered the town Hamilton withdrew into a house at the Gallow- 
gate to wait the issue. But it would be no more fair to take this 
report for truth than it would be to assume that Claverhouse really 
forbad burial to the dead Whigs, that the dogs might eat them 
where they lay in the streets. There was too much quarrelling in 
the Covenanting camp to allow us to take for granted all their 
judgments on each other when unfavourable; and at Drumclog 
Hamilton seems by all accounts to have borne himself bravely 
enough, whatever he may have done subsequently. 



Chapter IV 73 

them out of the town. Meanwhile, their comrades, 
descending the hill on the other side, saw what was 
going on, and, having no mind for a similar welcome, 
turned about and made off by the way they had come. 
The two parties joined and halted for a while at the 
place they had occupied on the previous night; but 
when they heard Claverhouse's trumpets sounding again 
to horse they fell back to Hamilton Park, where it was 
not thought prudent to follow them. 



74 Cla verho use 



CHAPTER V. 

There is no letter from Olaverhouse in this year, 1679, 
later than that reporting the defeat at Drumclog. There 
was, indeed, no occasion for him to write. As soon as 
the news of his defeat and the attack on Glasgow had 
reached the Council, orders were at once sent for the 
forces to withdraw from the latter place and join Lin- 
lithgow at Stirling. After Bothwell Bridge had been 
won he was sent again into the West on the weary 
work that we have already seen him employed on. But 
during the intervening time his independent command 
had ceased. At the same time there is no reason to 
suppose that he was in any disgrace for the defeat at 
Drumclog. He had committed the fault, not uncommon, 
as military history teaches, with more experienced leaders 
than Olaverhouse, of holding his foe too cheaply : he 
had committed this fault, and he had paid the penalty. 
There is some vague story of a sealed commission not 
to be opened till in the presencei of the enemy, and 
when opened on the slope of Drumclog containing strict 
orders to give battle wherever and whenever the chance 
might serve. But the story rests on too slight autho- 
rity to count for much. His own temperament would 
have made him fight without any sealed orders ; and, 
indeed, he had not long before written to Linlithgow 



Chapter V 75 

that he was determined to do so on the first occasion, 
and had warned his men to that effect. The wisdom of 
his resolve is clear. Disgusted with their work, dis- 
contented with the hardness of their fare and the in- 
frequency of their pay, in perpetual danger of their 
lives from unseen enemies, his soldiers were getting 
out of hand. Claverhouse was the sternest of dis- 
ciplinarians ; but the discipline of those days was a very 
different thing from our interpretation of the word. It 
was more a recognition by the soldier of the superior 
strength and possibilities of his officer, than trained 
obedience to an inevitable law. When they once had 
satisfied themselves that their captain was unable to 
bring the enemy to book, was unable even to provide 
them with proper rations and pay, no love for the flag 
would have kept them together for another hour. It 
was essential for Claverhouse to show them that he and 
they were more than a match for their foes whenever 
and in whatever form the opportunity came. Unfortu- 
nately for him it came in the form of Drumclog, and 
the proof had still to be given. 

But it is abundantly clear that no stain was con- 
sidered to rest either on his honour or his skill. The 
only ungenerous reference to his discomfiture came a 
few years later in the shape of a growl from old Dalziel 
against the folly of splitting the army up into small 
detachments at the discretion of rash and incompetent 
» leaders. Claverhouse was removed from his indepen- 
dent command only because the circumstances of the 
moment made it necessary. When it was found neces- 
sary to despatch a regular army against the insurgents 
(as, for all their provocation, they must after Drumclog 



j 6 Cla verho use 

be styled), lie took his proper place in that army as 
captain of a troop in the Royal Scottish Life Guards. 
When the brief campaign had closed at Bothwell Bridge, 
and, worst fortune for him, affairs had resumed their 
original complexion, he went back to his old posi- 
tion. 

It will be necessary, then, to supply this gap in 
Claverhouse's correspondence by a brief review of the 
state of things from the battle of Drumclog to the date 
of his new commission. 

The garrison of Glasgow had, as we have seen, 
joined Linlithgow at Stirling. There they lay for a day 
or two till orders were received from the Council for the 
whole army, which only numbered about eighteen hun- 
dred men in all, to fall back on Edinburgh. In the 
capital the greatest consternation reigned. The first 
proceeding of the Council was to proclaim the rising 
" an open, manifest, and horrid rebellion," and all the 
insurgents were summoned to surrender at discretion 
as " desperate and incorrigible traitors." Having thus 
satisfied their diplomatic consciences they wisely pro- 
ceeded to more practical measures. The militia was 
called out, horse and foot, in all the Lowlands, save in 
the disaffected shires. For those north of the Forth the 
rendezvous was at Stirling, for those south on the links 
of Leith. Each man was to bring ' provisions with him 
for ten days. The magistrates were ordered to remove all 
the powder and other munitions of war they could find in 
the city to the Castle. An armed guard was stationed 
night and day in the Canongate, and another in the 
Abbey. Finally, a post was sent to London on Linlith- 
gow's advice to urge the instant despatch of more troops, 



Chapter V yy 

and two shillings and sixpence a day of extra pay was 
promised to every foot soldier. 

They were not disturbed in their preparations. 
The Covenanters were too busy with their own affairs to 
take much heed what their enemies might be doing. 
They did, indeed, march into Glasgow, but beyond 
shooting a poor wretch whom they vowed they recog- 
nised as having fought against them on the 2nd, and 
possibly indulging in a little looting, they did nothing. 
They did not stay long in the town. Plans they seem 
to have had none, nor any settled organisation or 
discipline. Moving restlessly about the neighbour- 
hood from village to village and from moor to moor, 
their preachers exhorted and harangued as much 
against each other as against Pope or Prelate, and 
their leaders quarrelled as though there were not a 
King's soldier in all Scotland, nor Claverhouse within 
a dozen miles of them eager for the moment to strike. 
There w^as no lack of arms among them, and their 
numbers seem at this time to have been not far short 
of eight thousand. But no men of any position or 
influence in the country had joined them with the 
exception of Hamilton ; and his authority, whether 
the story of his cowardice at Glasgow be true or not, 
was not what it had been at Rutherglen and Drum- 
clog. The preachers seemed to have exercised the 
only control over the rabble ; and such control, as was 
natural, seems rarely to have lasted beyond the length of 
their sermons, which, indeed, were not commonly short. 
As the Covenanters (to keep to the distinguishing name 
I have chosen) were an extreme section of the Pres- 
byterians, so now the Covenanters themselves were 



7 8 Cla verho use 

divided into a moderate and an extreme party. The 
chiefs of the former, or Erastians as their opponents 
scornfully termed them, were John Welsh and David 
Hume. Of Hume there is no particular account, but 
Welsh we have met before. Though he had been under 
denunciation as a rebel ever since the Pentland rising 
(in which he had, indeed, borne no part), he had never 
given his voice for war ; and, though assuredly neither a 
coward nor a trimmer, had always kept from any active 
share in the proceedings of his more tumultuous 
brethren. His plan, and the plan of the few who at 
that time and place were on his side, was temperate and 
reasonable. They asked for no more than they were 
willing to give. Against the King, his government, 
and his bishops they had no quarrel, if only they were 
suffered to worship God after their own fashion. 
Though they themselves had not accepted the Indul- 
gence, they were not disposed to be unduly severe with 
those who had. In a word, they were willing to extend 
to all men the liberty they demanded for themselves. 
Had there been more of this wise mind among the 
Covenanters — among the Presbyterians, one may in- 
deed say — though it is hardly possible to believe that 
Lauderdale and his crew would not still have found 
occasion for oppression, it would be much easier to find 
sympathy for the oppressed. i 

On the other side, Hamilton himself, Donald Cargill, 
and Thomas Douglas were the most conspicuous in 
words, while Hackston, Burley, and the rest of Sharp's 
murderers were, of course, with them. Hamilton and 
Douglas we know. Cargill, like Douglas, was a minis- 
ter : he had received a good education at Aberdeen and 



Chapter V 79 

Saint Andrews, but had soon fallen into disgrace for the 
disloyalty and virulence of his language. In a sermon on 
the anniversary of the Restoration he had declared from 
his pulpit that the King's name should " stink while 
the world stands for treachery, tyranny, and lechery." 1 
In this party all was confused, extravagant, fierce, 
unreasoning. What they wanted, what they were 
fighting to get, from whom they expected to get it, 
even their own historians are unable to explain, and 
probably they themselves had no very clear notions. 
They talked of liberty, by which they seem to have 
meant no more than liberty to kill all who on any 
point thought otherwise than they did : of freedom, 
which meant freedom from all laws save their own 
passions : of the God of their fathers, and every day 
they violated alike His precepts and their practice. To 
slay and spare not was their watchword; but whom 
they were to slay, or what was to be gained or done 
when the slaying was accomplished, no two men among 
them were agreed. For the moment the current of their 
fury seems to have set most strongly against the Indul- 
gence and those who had accepted its terms. A single 
instance will show pretty clearly the state of insubor- 
dination into which those unhappy men had fallen. It 
was announced that one Rae, a favourite expounder 
on the moderate side, was about to preach on a cer- 
tain day in camp. Hamilton, who still retained the 
nominal command, sent him a letter bidding him not 
spare the Indulgence. To this Rae, who does not 
seem himself to have been in any position of authority, 
made answer that Hamilton had better mind what 
1 " Lives of the Scots Worthies," p. 383. 



80 Cla verho use 

belonged to him, and not go beyond his sphere and 
station. 1 It would not be difficult to draw a parallel 
between the condition of the Covenanting camp at that 
time and the so-called Irish Party of our own time. 
Indeed, if any body will be at the trouble to examine 
the contemporary accounts of Hamilton and his fol- 
lowers, and particularly their language, much of which 
has been faithfully chronicled by their admirers, they 
will be surprised to find how closely the parallel may 
be pushed. 

Meanwhile, on the other side preparations went 
briskly forward. A strong detachment of regular troops 
was at once despatched from London, with the young 
Duke of Monmouth himself in command. Great pains 
have been taken both by contemporary and later 
writers to explain the reason of this appointment. It 
was designed, they have said, to render him unpopular 
in Scotland. It is certainly possible that he might 
have been sent to Scotland to get him out of the way of 
his admirers in England, who just at that time were 
somewhat inconveniently noisy in their admiration. But 
the appointment does not seem to need any very subtle 
explanation. Monmouth was the King's favourite son. 
He had served his apprenticeship to the trade of war in 
the Low Countries, and under such captains as Turenne 
and William of Orange. He Was popular with the 
people for his personal courage, his good looks, his 
pleasant manners, and above all for his Protestantism — 
a matter with him possibly more of policy than prin- 
ciple, but which served among the common people to 
gain him the affectionate nickname of The Protestant 
1 Wodrow, iii. 93. 



Chapter V 81 

Duke, and to distinguish him in their eyes as the 
natural antagonist to the unpopular and Popish James. 
With all his faults Monmouth was no tyrant, and 
Charles himself was rather careless than cruel. This 
appointment, therefore, was taken in Scotland to signify 
a disposition on the King's part to employ gentle means 
if possible with the insurgents, and as such was not 
altogether approved of. Gentle means were not much 
to the taste of the presiding spirits of the Council- 
Board at Edinburgh, whose native ferocity had certainly 
not been softened by the fright and confusion of the 
last few days. It was particularly requested, therefore, 
that Dalziel might be named second in command, who 
might well be trusted to counteract any unseasonable 
leniency on Monmouth's part. Fortunately for the in- 
surgents the old savage did not receive his commission 
till the day after the battle. 

Monmouth left London on June 15th and reached 
Edinburgh on the 18th. He at once took the field. 
Montrose commanded the cavalry, Linlithgow the foot : 
Claverhouse rode at the head of his troop under his 
kinsman, and the Earls of Home and Airlie were 
there in charge of their respective troops : Mar held a 
command of foot. Many other Scotch noblemen and 
gentlemen of position followed the army as volunteers. 
Some Highlanders and a considerable body of militia 
made up a force which has been put as high as fifteen 
thousand men, but probably did not exceed half that 
number. 

The near approach of the royal troops only increased 
the quarrelling and confusion in the insurgent camp, 
which was pitched now at Hamilton. Some friends at 

G 



8 2 Cla verho use 

Edinburgh had sent word to them that Monmouth 
might be found not indisposed to treat ; and that it 
would be best for them to stand off for a while, and not 
on any account be drawn into fighting. But the 
idea of treating only inflamed the more violent. On 
the 21st a council was called which began in mutual 
recrimination and abuse, and ended in a furious quarrel. 
Hamilton drew his sword, vociferating that it was 
drawn as much against the King's curates and the 
minions of the Indulgence as against the English 
dragoons, and left the meeting followed by Cargill, 
Douglas and the more violent of his party. Disgusted 
with the scene, and convinced of the hopelessness of a 
cause supported by such men, many left the camp and 
returned to their own homes. Welsh and the moderate 
leaders resolved to take matters into their own hands. 
On the morning of the 22 nd Monmouth had reached 
Bothwell. His advance guard held the little town 
about a quarter of a mile distant from the river : his 
main body was encamped on the moor. Shortly after 
daybreak he was surprised by a visit from Welsh, 
Hume and another of their party, Fergusson of Cait- 
loch. Monmouth received them courteously, and heard 
them with patience while they read to him a paper 
(known in Covenanting annals as the Hamilton De- 
claration) they had drawn up detailing their grievances 
and their demands. The first were indisputable : the 
second were, as has been said, moderate. Monmouth 
was, however, forced to answer that he could not treat 
with armed rebels. If they would lay down their arms 
and surrender at discretion, he promised to do all he 
could to gain them not only present pardon but tole- 



Chapter V 83 

ranee in the future. Meanwhile, he said, they had best 
return to their camp, report his message, and bring 
him back an answer within half an hour's time. They 
returned, only to find confusion worse confounded, and 
their own lives even in some danger from the furious 
Hamilton. 

The half-hour passed, and no further sign of sub- 
mission was made. Monmouth bid the advance be 
sounded, and the Foot Guards, commanded by young 
Livingstone, Linlithgow's eldest son, moved down to the 
bridge. Just at that spot the Clyde is deep and narrow, 
running swiftly between steep banks fringed on the 
western side with bushes of alder and hazel. The 
bridge itself was only twelve feet wide, and guarded in 
the centre with a gate-house. The post was a strong 
one for defence, and had there been any military skill, 
or even unity of purpose, among the defendants, Mon- 
mouth would have had to buy his passage dear. Hack- 
ston of Eathillet had thrown himself with a small body 
of determined men into the gate-house, while Burley, 
with a few who could hold their muskets straight, 
took up his post among the alder-bushes. The rest 
stood idly by while their comrades fought. For about 
an hour Hackston held the gate till his powder was 
spent. He sent to Hamilton for more, or for fresh 
troops, but the only answer he received was an 
order to retire. He had no choice but to fall back on 
the main body, which he found at that supreme moment 
busily engaged in cashiering their officers, and quarrel- 
ling over the choice of new ones. The English foot then 
crossed the bridge : Monmouth followed leisurely at the 
head of the horse, while his cannon played from the 

G 2 



84 Cla verhouse 

eastern bank on the disordered masses of the Covenanters. 
A few Galloway men, better mounted and officered than 
the rest of their fellows, spurred out against the Life 
Guards as they were filing off the narrow bridge, but 
were at once ordered back by Hamilton. The rest of 
the horse in taking up fresh ground to avoid the 
English cannon completed the disorder of the foot— if, 
indeed, anything were wanted to complete the disorder 
of a rabble which had never known the meaning of the 
word order ; and a general forward movement of the 
royal troops, who had now all passed the bridge, gave 
the signal for flight. Hamilton was the first to obey it, 
thus, in the words of an eye-witness, " leaving the 
world to debate whether he acted most like a traitor, a 
coward, or a fool." l Twelve hundred of the poor wretches 
surrendered at discretion : the rest fled in all directions. 
Monmouth ordered quarter to be given to all who 
asked it, and there is no doubt that he was able con- 
siderably to diminish the slaughter. Comparatively 
few fell at the bridge, but four or five hundred are said ' 
to have fallen, " murdered up and down the fields," 
says Wodrow, " wherever the soldiers met them, with- 
out mercy." Mercy was not a conspicuous quality of 
the soldiery of those days ; and the discovery of a huge 
gallows in the insurgents' camp, with a cartload of new 
ropes at the foot, was not likely to stay the hands of 
men who knew well enough that had the fortune of 
war been different those ropes would have been round 
their necks without any mercy. But it is clear that 
Monmouth was able to save many. When Dalziel 
arrived next day in camp and learned how things had 
1 Wodrow, iii. 107. 



Chapter V 85 

gone, lie rebuked the Duke to his face for betraying 
his command. " Had I come a day sooner," he said, 
" these rogues should never have troubled his majesty 
or the kingdom any more." l 

There is no authority for attributing to Claverhouse 
himself any particular ferocity. We may be pretty 
sure that the Covenanting chroniclers would not have 
refrained from another fling at their favourite scapegoat 
could they have found a stone to their hand; but as 
a matter of fact, in no account of the battle is he 
mentioned, save by name only, as having been present 
with his troop in Monmouth's army. The fiery and 
vindictive part assigned to him by Scott rests on the 
authority of the most amazing tissue of absurdities 
ever woven out of the inventive fancy of a ballad- 
monger. 2 He had no kinsman's death to avenge, and 
he was too good a soldier to directly disobey his chief's 
orders, however little they may have been to his 
taste. 

There is, moreover, positive evidence to the contrary. 
Six years after the battle one Robert Smith, of Dunscore, 
who had been among the rebel horsemen at Both. well, 

1 Creichton, pp. 37-8. 

2 See some doggrel verses on the battle in " The Minstrelsy of the 
Scottish Border," in which Claverhouse is represented as posting off 
to London from the field of battle and, by means of false witnesses, 
bringing Monmouth to the scaffold as a traitor who had given 
quarter to the King's enemies. Sir Walter, of course, knew very 
well what he was about ; but it did not seem to him necessary to 
write fiction with the nice exactness of the historian ; nor was he, 
happily for us, of that scrupulous order of minds which conceives 
that a cruel wrong has been done to the reputation of a man who 
has been in his grave for nearly a century and a half by employing 
the colours of tradition to heighten the pictures of fancy. 



8 6 Cla verho use 

deposed that as they, some sixteen hundred in number, 
were in retreat towards Carrick, he saw the royal 
cavalry halted within less than a mile from the field, 
and this was considered by the fugitives to have been 
done to favour their escape. " For," he went on, " if 
they had followed us they had certainly killed or 
taken us all." It is clear, therefore, that whatever 
Claverhouse might have done had he been left to him- 
self, or whatever he may have wished to do — what he 
did do was, in common with the rest of the army, to 
obey his superior's orders. 



87 



CHAPTER VI. 

Could Monmouth's influence have lasted, their defeat 
at Bothwell Bridge might have turned out well for the 
Covenanters. As soon as he had led his army back into 
quarters, he hastened to London, where he so strongly 
represented the brutal folly and mismanagement of 
Lauderdale's government, that he prevailed upon the 
King to try once more the effect of gentler measures. 
An indemnity was granted for the past, and even 
some limited form of indulgence for the future. But 
the unexpected return of the Duke of York from 
Holland put an end to all these humane counsels. 
Monmouth was himself soon again in disgrace ; and 
Lauderdale, though his power was now past its height, 
was still strong enough to mould to his own will con- 
cessions for which the time had now perhaps irrevocably 
gone. 

The twelve hundred prisoners from Bothwell were 
marched in chains to Edinburgh, and penned like sheep 
in the churchyard of the Grey Friars, the building 
which barely forty years before had witnessed the 
triumphant birth of that Covenant which was, if ever 
covenant of man was, assuredly to be baptized in blood, 
Two of them, and both ministers, were immediately 
executed : five others, as though to appease the cruel 



88 Claverhouse 

ghost of Sharp, were hanged on Magus Moor : of the 
rest, the most part were set at liberty on giving bonds 
for their future good behaviour, while the more obstinate 
were shipped off to the plantations. 

Claverhouse was now sent back to his old employ- 
ment. Though none of his own letters of this time 
have survived, it is clear from an Order of the Privy 
Council that shortly after the affair at Bothwell he was 
again entrusted with the control of the rebellious shires. 
There is unfortunately no record of his own by which 
it is possible to check the vague charges of Wodrow, who 
wisely declines to commit himself to particulars on the 
ground that " multitudes of instances, once flagrant, 
are now at this distance lost," while not a few, he 
candidly admits, " were never distinctly known." In 
the rare cases in which he becomes more specific in 
his complaints, he does not make it clear that the 
offences were committed in Claverhouse's presence, nor 
even that they were always committed by soldiers of 
his troop — " the soldiers under Claverhouse " seem to 
stand with him for all the royal forces then employed 
in the western shires. That what he calls " spulies, 
depredations, and violences " were committed on Claver- 
house's authority may be freely granted : they were pre- 
cisely such as a strict obedience to the letter (and no 
less to the spirit) of his commission would have enjoined 
— the levying of fines, the seizure of arms, horses, and 
other movable property from all suspected of any share 
in the rebellion who would not absolve themselves by 
taking the oath of abjuration, and from all resetters, or 
harbourers, of known rebels. It would be idle to refuse 
to believe that many unjust and cruel acts were not 



Chapter VI 89 

committed at this time, as we know they were committed 
subsequently, merely because they cannot be succinctly 
proved. It is unlikely that Claverhouse himself wasted 
over-much time on sifting every case that was brought 
in to him by his spies ; and where he was not himself 
present — and it must be remembered that he was not 
the only officer engaged in this service, and also that 
his own soldiers were often employed under his lieu- 
tenants on duties he was personally unable to attend to 
— it is hard to doubt that much wild and brutal work 
went on. The whole case, in short, except in a very 
few instances (which will be examined elsewhere), is 
one solely of hearsay and tradition ; and it is no more 
than common justice in any attempt to define Claver- 
house's share in it, to give him the benefit of the 
doubt where it is not directly contrary to the proved 
facts and the evidence of his despatches. For Claver- 
house, it should be also and always remembered, may be 
implicitly trusted to speak the truth in these matters, 
for the simple reason that he was not in the least 
ashamed of his work. We may well believe that it 
was not the work he would have chosen; but it was 
the work he had been set to do ; and his concern was 
only to execute it as completely as possible. He was a 
soldier, obeying the orders of his superiors, for which 
they and they only were responsible. That their orders 
matched with his feelings, religious as well as political, 
for Claverhouse was as thorough in his devotion to the 
Church as he was in his devotion to the Crown, mattered 
nothing. The whole question was to him one of military 
obedience. Sorely as he may have chafed at the order, 
he halted his troopers on the banks of the Clyde when 



90 Cla verhouse 

Monmouth's trumpets sounded the recall, with the same 
readiness and composure that he showed in leading them 
to the charge down the slopes of Drumclog ; and he 
would have led them against his brothers-in-arms Ross 
or James Douglas, had they turned rebels, as straightly 
and keenly as he led them against Hamilton and Burley. 
At the same time both his letters and his actions 
show that he did his best to discriminate between the 
ringleaders and the crowd : between the brawling 
demagogues or the meddlesome priests and the honest 
ignorant peasants, whose only crime was that they 
wished to worship God after a fashion the Government 
chose to discountenance. It is not necessary to assume 
that he was moved thereto by any softness of heart : 
common- sense, and a sense, too, of justice, would suffice 
to show him where to strike. And it will hereafter be 
seen that, where his commission was large enough, he 
more than once exercised a discretion not entirely to 
the taste of the more thorough-going zealots of the 
Edinburgh Council-board. 

The only distinct evidence we have of him at this 
time is contained in the aforesaid Orders of Council. 
From these it appears that he had been charged by the 
Scottish Treasury with appropriating the public moneys 
to his use. He had been appointed for his services 
trustee to the Crown of the estate of one Macdowall of 
Freugh, an outlawed Galloway laird ; and of this estate 
it was alleged that he would render no accounts, nor 
of the fines he had been commissioned to levy on the 
non-abjuring rebels. With characteristic fearlessness 
Claverhouse went straight to London, and in a personal 
interview satisfied Charles of his innocence, who forth- 



Chapter VI 91 

with ordered him to be reinstated in his commission 
and all the privileges belonging to it. 1 It is clear, 
however, that during the greater part of the year 1680 
Claverhouse was suspended from both his civil arid 
military employments, and this will account for the duty 
of punishing the authors of the Sanquhar Declaration 
devolving not upon him, but upon his lieutenant, Bruce 
ofEarlshall. 

The prime mover of the Sanquhar Declaration was 
Richard Cameron, who had now become the head of 
the extreme party, henceforth to be known by his name 
—a name which still survives as that of a distinguished 
regiment of the British army. It was framed in much 
the same language and to much the same purpose as its 
predecessor of Eutherglen, though it would not be 
right to degrade Cameron to the level of Hamilton and 
his ruffianly associates. It took its title from having 
been fixed to the market-cross of Sanquhar, a small 
town in Dumfriesshire, on June 22nd, 1680. Exactly a 
month later Claverhouse's troopers (though, as I have 
said, not commanded by Claverhouse himself) came 
upon the Cameronians in a desolate spot among the 
wilds of Ayrshire, known as Aird's Moss. Richard 
Cameron was killed at the first charge : Donald Cargill 
and Hackston of Rathillet were made prisoners. Both 
were taken to Edinburgh and executed, the latter with 
circumstances of needless barbarity. 

Though Claverhouse was reinstated in his com- 

1 " We have spoken to him about it," runs the royal Order, " and 
he doth positively assert that while he was in Scotland he received 
not one farthing upon that account" (Napier, ii. 238). The two 
Orders are dated respectively February 3rd and 26th, 1681. 



92 Cla verhouse 

mission, he does not appear to have been actively em- 
ployed during the year 1681, the second year of the 
Duke of York's administration in Scotland, and the 
year also of the Test and Succession Acts, which were 
destined to cost another Argyle his head. Early in 
1682 the Duke of York returned to England, to which 
fact Wodrow attributes " a sort of respite of severities," 
notwithstanding that Claverhouse was once more com- 
missioned for his old work in the West, and with even 
ampler authority than before. In addition to his military 
powers, he was appointed Sheriff of Wigtownshire and 
Deputy- Sheriff of Dumfriesshire and the Stewartries of 
Kirkcudbright and Annandale ; and he was also specially 
invested with a commission to hold criminal courts in 
the first-named shire and to try delinquents by jury. 
His letters to Queensberry 1 begin in February 1682, 
and from this time onward his actions become easier to 
follow. These letters give a very full and fair idea of 
his method of procedure, and in one of them is a passage 
worth quoting as evidence how far that method as yet 
deserved the hard epithets which have been so freely 
lavished on it. The despatch is dated from Newton in 
Galloway, March 1st, 1682. 

" The proposal I wrote to your Lordship of, for securing 
the peace, I am sure will please in all 1 things but one, — that 
it will be somewhat out of the King's pocket. The way 
that I see taken in other places is to put laws severely, 
against great and small, in execution ; which is very just ; 
but what effects does that produce, but more to exasperate 
and alienate the hearts of the whole body of the people ; for 

1 The Marquis of Queensberry was then Lord Treasurer, and 
practically, since Lauderdale's disgrace, first Minister of Scotland. 



Chapter VI 93 

it renders three desperate where it gains one ; and your 
Lordship knows that in the greatest crimes it is thought 
wisest to pardon the multitude and punish the ringleaders, 
where the number of the guilty is great, as in this case of 
whole countries. Wherefore, I have taken another course 
here. I have called two or three parishes together at one 
Church, and, after intimating to them the power I have, I 
read them a libel narrating all the Acts of Parliament 
against the fanatics; whereby I made them sensible how much 
they were in the King's reverence, and assured them he was 
relenting nothing of his former severity against dissenters, 
nor care of maintaining the established government ; as they 
might see by his doubling the fines in the late Act of 
Parliament; and in the end told them, that the King had no 
design to ruin any of his subjects he could reclaim, nor I 
to enrich myself by their crimes ; and therefore any who 
would resolve to conform, and live regularly, might expect 
favour ; excepting only resetters and ringleaders. Upon 
this, on Sunday last, there was about three hundred people 
at Kirkcudbright Church ; some that for seven years before 
had never been there. So that I do expect that within a 
short time I could bring two parts of three to the Church. 
But when I have done, — that is all to no purpose. For we 
will be no sooner gone, but in comes their Ministers, and 
all repent and fall back to their old ways. So that it is vain 
to think of any settlement here, without a constant force 
placed in garrison. And this is the opinion of all the 
honest men here, and their desire. For there are some of 
them, do what they like, they cannot keep the preacher 
from their houses in their absence, so mad are some of their 
wives." 

His remedy was to raise a hundred dragoons for a 
permanent garrison : the Crown was to pay the soldiers, 
and the country would find maintenance for the horses, 



94 Cla verho use 

he bearing his own part as " a Galloway laird," which 
he was as trustee of Macdowall's estate. The command 
of this new force he was willing to undertake without 
any additional pay. 

It does not seem that this remedy was ever sanc- 
tioned ; but at any rate Claverhouse so managed matters 
that a month later he was able to report to the Council 
that all was " in perfect peace." 

" All who were in the rebellion are either seized, gone 
out of the country, or treating their peace ; and they have 
already so conformed, as to going to the Church, that it is 
beyond my expectation. In Dumfries not only almost all 
the men are come, but the women have given obedience ; 
and Irongray, Welsh's own parish, have for the most part 
conformed \ and so it is all over the country. So that, if I 
be suffered to stay any time here, I do expect to see this 
the best settled part of the Kingdom on this side the Tay. 
And if these dragoons were fixed which I wrote your 
Lordship about, I might promise for the continuance of 
it. . . . All this is done without having received a farthing 
money, either in JSTithsdale, Annandale, or Kirkcudbright ; 
or imprisoned anybody. But, in end, there will be need 
to make examples of the stubborn that will not comply. 
Nor will there be any danger in this after we have gained 
the great body of the people \ to whom I am become accept- 
able enough; having passed all bygones, upon bonds of 
regular carriage hereafter." l 

For these services Claverhouse was summoned to 
Edinburgh to receive the thanks of the Council, to 
whom he presented an official report of his proceedings 

1 Claverhouse to Queensberry, April 1st, 1682. 



Chapter VI 95 

which is no more than a summary of his letters to 
Queensberry. 1 

It was not likely that a man so uniformly successful 
and of such high spirit would be able to steer clear of 
all offence to men, who probably felt towards him much 
as Elizabeth's old courtiers felt towards the triumphant 
and masterful Kaleigh. Nor, conscious of his own powers 
and confident in the royal favour, is it probable that he 
was always at much pains to avoid offence, for, though 
neither a quarrelsome nor a wilful man, he had his 
own opinions, and was not shy of expressing them 
when he saw fit to do so. With all his constitutional 
regard for authority and his soldier's respect for disci- 
pline, Claverhouse would suffer himself to be brow- 
beaten by no one. In those jealous intriguing days a 
man who could not fight for his own hand was bound 
to go down in the struggle. Claverhouse was now to 
give a signal proof that he both could and would fight 
for his when the need came. 

The Dalrymples of Stair had been settled in Gallo- 
way for many generations. Sir James, the head of 
the house, was one of the first lawyers of the day, and 
had held the Chair of Philosophy in the University of 
Glasgow : the son. Sir John (afterwards to earn an un- 
dying name in history as prime mover in the Massacre 
of Glencoe), was heritable Baillie in the regality of 
Glenluce. There had been bad blood between them and 
Claverhouse for some time past. The father had not 
profited sufficiently by his studies either in law or philo- 
sophy to recognise the folly of a man in disgrace ventur- 

1 A copy of this report was printed in the Aberdeen Papers 
(1851) from the original in Claverhouse's own hand : Napier, ii. 276. 



g6 Cla verho use 

ing to measure swords with one of fortune's favourites. 
And Sir James at the time of his quarrel with Olaverhouse 
was in disgrace. At the close of 1681 he had been dis- 
missed from the office of President of the Court of Session 
for refusing the Test Act ; and for some while previously 
he had been coldly regarded for his advocacy of gentler 
measures than suited Lauderdale and his creatures. The 
Dalrymples were strict Presbyterians ; and though the 
men were too cautious to meddle openly with treason- 
able matters, their womenfolk were notoriously in active 
sympathy with the rebels. All through Claverhouse's 
letters of this time run allusions to some great personage 
whom it might be wise to make an example of, and he 
himself had taken an early opportunity of impressing on 
Sir James the necessity of caution. 1 But the latter would 
not be warned. He set himself against Olaverhouse at 
every opportunity, both openly and in secret. He wrote 
long querulous letters to Edinburgh, complaining of the 
latter 's disrespect. Finally, when he found it prudent 
to leave the country for a while, his son carried the 
business to a height by bringing a formal charge 
against Olaverhouse of extortion and malversation. 
The latter saw his opportunity, and at once carried the 
war into the enemy's country. "He preferred a specific 
bill of complaint against Sir John, in the course of 

1 " Here in the shire I find the lairds all following the example 
of a late great man, and still a considerable heritor here among 
them ; which is, to live regularly themselves, but have their houses 
constant haunts of rebels and intercommuned persons, and have 
their children baptized by the same ; and then lay all the blame on 
their wives ; condemning them, and swearing they cannot help 
what is done in their absence." Olaverhouse to Queensberry, 
March 5th, 1682. 



Chapter VI 97 

which it came out that he had been offered a bribe both 
by father and son not to interfere with their hereditary 
jurisdictions ; and, notwithstanding the exertions of Sir 
George Lockhart and Fountainhall, the most eminent 
counsel of the Scottish bar, utterly defeated him on 
every point. The Court found that Sir John Dalrymple 
had been guilty of employing rebels and of winking at 
treasonable practices : of not exacting the proper fines 
by law ordained for such misdemeanours : of stirring up 
the country-folk against the King's troops ; and, finally, 
of grossly misrepresenting Olaverhouse to the Council. 
For these offences he was sentenced to pay a fine of 
five hundred pounds and the whole costs of the pro- 
ceedings, and to be imprisoned in the Castle of Edin- 
burgh till the money should be paid. Olaverhouse, on 
his side, received not only a full and most complimen- 
tary acquittal from all his adversary's charges, but also 
a signal proof of the royal favour in the presentation 
to a regiment of cavalry raised especially for this pur- 
pose. His commission was dated December 25th, 1682, 
and in the following March he was sent into England 
with despatches from the Council to the King and the 
Duke of York, who was still nominally Commissioner 
for Scottish Affairs. 1 

Hitherto Olaverhouse may be said to have stood 
conspicuous among the men of his time for his per- 
sistent refusal to enrich himself at the public cost. He 
had certainly had many opportunities, as had a still 
more famous captain after him, of wondering at his own 
moderation, yet his enemies had been unable to bring 
home to him a single instance of malpractice. But we 

1 Napier, ii. 285-309. 

H 



9 8 Cla verho use 

have now come to an episode in his life for which an 
extremely virtuous or an extremely censorious moralist 
might, were he so minded, find occasion to re-echo 
the popular epithet of rapacious. Claverhouse was in 
no sense of the word an avaricious man ; but, like all 
sensible men, he had a strong belief in the truth of the 
maxim, the labourer is worthy of his hire. He had 
laboured long and successfully; and the time, he 
thought, had now come for his hire. 

Lauderdale was dying, and from every side the 
vultures were flocking fast to their prey. In those days 
politicians looked for promotion mainly to the death or 
disgrace of their comrades, and the death of any power- 
ful statesman generally meant the disgrace of his family. 
All parties were now busy in anticipation over the rich 
booty that was so soon to come into the market. His 
brother and heir, Charles Maitland of Hatton, was at- 
tacked before the breath was out of the old man's body. 
Among the many lucrative posts he enjoyed, the most 
lucrative was that of Governor (or General, as the style 
went) of the Scottish Mint. At the instigation of Sir 
George Gordon of Haddo, who had become in quick suc- 
cession President of the Court of Session, Lord Chancel- 
lor, and Earl of Aberdeen, a Commission was appointed to 
inquire into the state of the coinage, with the result that 
Maitland (by this time Earl of Lauderdale, for the duke- 
dom began and ended with his brother) was declared 
to have appropriated to his own use no less than seventy 
thousand pounds of the revenue. In the general 
division of spoil which this verdict gave signal for, 
Claverhouse saw no reason why he should go empty 
away. Eleven years previously, when the old statesman 



Chapter VI 99 

was at the height of his evil power, his brother had 
been appointed Constable of Dundee and presented 
with the estate of Dudhope, lying conveniently near 
to Claverhouse' s few paternal acres. A bargain, which 
would have seemed in those days no disgraceful thing 
to any human being, was accordingly struck between 
Claverhouse and the various claimants for the dead 
man's shoes. Queensberry, though but lately advanced 
to a marquisate, had set his heart upon a dukedom : 
the Chancellor was in want of money to support his 
new honours. And there were other petitioners for the 
good offices of the ambassador to Whitehall : Huntly 
and the Earl Marischal and Sir George Mackenzie had 
each marked his share of the general prize. To one 
and all Claverhouse promised his services ; and they on 
their part were to advance by all means in their power 
his designs on the fat acres of Dudhope. All this, no 
doubt, sounds very contemptible to us now, who manage 
these matters so much more circumspectly; but it 
must be remembered that Lauderdale, though his offence 
was probably greatly exaggerated, and though a large 
part of the fine in which he had been originally cast 
was in fact remitted, had certainly been guilty of gross 
carelessness, if not of actual malversation ; while Claver- 
house on his part offered to pay, and did pay, whatever 
sum might be legally fixed as due for his share of the 
booty. 1 

1 " I must beg your Lordship's assistance in that business of the 
lands of Dudhope. My Lord Chancellor designs nothing but to sell 
it, and buy lands in the north, seeing he is to get Stirling Castle to 
dwell in. Wherefore I desire leave to ask the house of Dudhope, 
and the Constabulary, and other jurisdictions of Dundee belonging 
to my Lord Lauderdale ; and I offer to buy forty chalders of victual 

h 2 



I oo Cla ver house 

All these bargains were in time brought to a success- 
ful issue. Claverhouse was in England from the be- 
ginning of March to the middle of May. He was with 
the Court at Newmarket, Windsor, and London, always 
in high favour, but at the former place finding the King 
more eager for his company at the cockpit and race- 
course than in the council-chamber. 1 Early in May he 
returned to Scotland, and shortly after his return he 
took his seat at Edinburgh as a Privy Councillor. 
This was his present reward : Dudhope and the Con- 
stabulary were to follow later, with Queensberry's and 
Huntly's dukedoms and the other honours. But Dud- 
hope was not destined to drop into his lap. The Chan- 
cellor, whom he counted as his particular friend, had 
played him false. Lauderdale's fine had been reduced 
by Charles from seventy thousand pounds to twenty 
thousand, sixteen thousand of which were granted to 
the Chancellor and four thousand to Claverhouse. But 
should Lauderdale and his son agree to assign to the 
Chancellor under an unburdened title the lands and 
lordship of Dundee and Dudhope, then the whole sum 
was to be remitted, Lauderdale binding himself to dis- 
charge the fines inflicted on his subordinates. Power 

from my Lord Chancellor lying about it [meaning the land bearing 
so much, at a valuation], though I should sell other lands to do it. 
I have no house, and it lies within half-a-mile of my land ; and all 
that business would be extremely convenient for me, and signify 
not much to my Lord Chancellor, especially seeing I am willing to 
bay the land. I would take this for the greatest favour in the 
world, for I cannot have the patience to build and plant." Claver- 
house to Queensberry, March 20th, 1683. 

1 " It is hard to get any business done here. I walked but nine 
miles this morning with the King, besides cock-fighting and courses." 
Claverhouse to Queensberry, Newmarket, March 9th, 1683. 



Chapter VI 101 

was also given to Claverhouse to redeem this property 
from the Chancellor at twenty years' purchase ; and it 
seems also to have been privately agreed between them 
that the purchase-money was not to be exacted, on con- 
dition of the former buying certain other lands in the 
neighbourhood that the latter wished to dispose of. 
But the crafty Chancellor saw an easier and quieter way 
to get hold of his money. For the sum of eight thou- 
sand pounds he privately relinquished all his rights to 
Lauderdale, thus leaving the latter free to deal with 
Claverhouse on his own terms. This bit of sharp 
practice was effected in August 1683; and it was not 
till the following March that the business was finally 
settled, after a long and tedious wrangle before the 
Court, in the course of which Claverhouse seemed to 
have found occasion to speak his mind pretty sharply to 
the Chancellor. On the question of the former's right 
to demand Dudhope on the terms of twenty years' pur- 
chase Lauderdale had to give way ; but on the other 
question of clearing the title he was so difficult to deal 
with that the King himself had to interfere ; and not 
till a peremptory order had gone down from White- 
hall, cancelling the royal pardon till all the terms of the 
original agreement had been satisfactorily settled, was 
the affair finally closed, the title cleared, and Claver- 
house established as master of the long-coveted estate. 

It was not till the autumn of 1684 that Claver- 
house found himself master of Dudhope and Constable 
of Dundee. Meanwhile one of the few domestic events 
of his life that have come down to us had taken place. 
On June 10th he had been married to the Lady Jean 
Cochrane, granddaughter to the old Earl of Dundonald. 



1 02 Cla verho use 

This young lady was the daughter of William, Lord 
Cochrane, by Catherine, daughter of the Presbyterian 
Earl of Cassilis and sister to that Lady Margaret Ken- 
nedy whom Gilbert Burnet had married. Her father 
had died before Claverhouse came on the scene, leaving 
seven children, of whom Jean was the youngest. Her 
mother, whose notoriously Whiggish sympathies had 
brought both her husband and father-in-law into sus- 
picion, was furiously opposed to the match; though 
worldly prudence may have touched her heart as well 
as religious scruple, for Claverhouse, though he had 
risen fast and was marked by all men as destined to rise 
still higher, was hardly as yet perhaps a very eligible 
husband for the pretty Lady Jean. But in truth it 
was a strange family for him to seek a wife in, and 
many were the whispered gibes the news of his courtship 
provoked at Edinburgh. Was this strong Samson, men 
asked, to fall a prey at last to a Whiggish Delilah ? 
Hamilton, whose own loyalty was by no means unim- 
peachable, and who was no friend to Claverhouse, 
affected to be much distressed by the Lady Susannah's 
partiality for the young Lord Cochrane, and made great 
parade of his disinclination to give his daughter to the 
son of such a mother without the express consent of 
the King ; and this Claverhouse chose to take as a hit 
at him, who had not thought it necessary to ask any 
one's permission to choose his own wife. Affairs were 
still further complicated by the backslidings of Sir 
John Cochrane, Lady Jean's uncle, a notorious rebel 
who was then in hiding for his complicity with Eussell 
and Sidney, and was even suspected of knowing some- 
thing of that darker affair of the Rye House. Claver- 



Chapter VI 103 

house was furious at the gossip. " My Lord Duke 
Hamilton/' he wrote to Queensberry, 

" has refused to treat of giving his daughter to my Lord 
Cochrane, till he should have the King and the Duke's 
leave. This, I understand, has been advised him, to load 
me. Wherefore I have written to the Duke, and told him 
that I would have done it sooner, had I not judged it pre- 
sumption in me to trouble his Highness with my little con- 
cerns ; and that I looked upon myself as a cleanser, that may 
cure others by coming amongst them, but cannot be infected 
by any plague of Presbytery ; besides, that I saw nothing 
singular in my Lord Dundonald's case, save that he has 
but one rebel on his land for ten that the lords and lairds 
of the south and west have on theirs ; and that he is 
willing to depone that he knew not of there being such. 
The Duke is juster than to charge my Lord Dundonald 
with Sir John's crimes. He is a madman, and let him 
perish ; they deserve to be damned that own him. The 
Duke knows what it is to have sons and nephews that 
follow not advice. I have taken pains to know the state 
of the country's guilt as to reset • and if I make it not appear 
that my Lord Dundonald is one of the clearest of all that 
country, and can hardly be reached in law, I am content 
to pay his fine. I never pleaded for any, nor shall I here- 
after. But I must say I think it hard that no regard is had 
to a man in so favourable circumstances — I mean considering 
others — upon my account, and that nobody offered to meddle 
with him till they heard I was likely to be concerned in 
him. . . . Whatever come of this, let not my enemies mis- 
represent me. They may abuse the Duke for a time, and 
hardly. But, or long, I will, in despite of them, let the 
world see that it is not in the power of love, nor any other 
folly, to alter my loyalty." 



1 04 Cla verhouse 

And again on the same day : 

" For my own part, I look upon myself as a cleanser. I 
may cure people guilty of that plague of Presbytery by con- 
versing with them, but cannot be infected. And I see very 
little of that amongst those persons but may be easily 
rubbed off. And for the young lady herself, I shall answer 
for her. Had she not been right principled, she would 
never, in despite of her mother and relations, made choice 
of a persecutor, as they call me." * 

The young lady seems to have been well-favoured, 
though it is not easy to learn much from the female 
portraits of those days, which are all very much of a 
piece. What else she may have been it is impossible 
to say. She is a name in her husband's history and 
nothing more, and in the few stormy years that were 
yet to run for him she could not well have been much 
more. However, she seems to have been well pleased 
with her handsome lover ; and, in spite of her mother's 
opposition, the marriage was pushed briskly forward. 
The contract was signed at Paisley on June 10th, and 
on the following day the marriage was celebrated at 
the same place. Lady Catherine's is not among the 
signatures ; but there is to be seen the almost illegible 
scrawl of the old grandfather and of Euphrame his 
wife, a daughter of Sir William Scott of Ardross. 
The bride's eldest brother, whose own marriage with 
the Lady Susannah Hamilton was soon to follow, and 
her cousin John, son of the outlaw of Ochiltree, were 
also among the witnesses ; and for the bridegroom, his 

1 Both these letters were written from Edinburgh, May 19th, 
1684. 



Chapter VI 105 

brother-in-arnis Lord Ross 1 and Colin Mackenzie, bro- 
ther of the Lord Advocate, Sir George of Rosehaugh. 
The lady's jointure was fixed at five thousand merks 
Scots (something over two hundred and seventy pounds 
of English money), secured on certain property in 
Forfarshire and Perthshire ; while she on her side 
brought her husband what in those days was reckoned 
a very comfortable fortune for a younger child. 2 

The marriage was made under an evil star. Hardly 
had the blessing been spoken when word came down 
in haste from Glasgow that the Whigs were up. Since 
the Sanquhar Declaration and the deaths of Cameron 

1 William, twelfth Lord Boss, son of the one previously men- 
tioned. 

2 Napier, ii. 385-393. The contract was first printed in the 
volume of Claverhouse's letters edited by George Smythe for the 
Bannatyne Club in 1826. That volume contains also portraits of 
the bride and bridegroom, a drawing of which was made by Sharpe 
for Napier. The portrait of the latter is the one known as the 
Leven portrait, now in possession of Lady Elizabeth Cartwright. The 
portrait of Lady Jean is from a picture then belonging to the editor. 
There is also an engraving of a mourning ring belonging to the 
editor's grandmother, Catherine Cochrane, wife of David Smythe 
of Methven, said to have been given to her by her father, Lady 
Dundee's brother. The ring contains a lock of Dundee's hair, on 
which the letters V.D. are worked in gold/with a Viscount's coronet 
above. The motto is " Great Dundee for God and me. J. Kex." 
One child was born of the marriage in April 1689, and he died three 
months after his father fell at Killiecrankie. Lady Dundee married 
secondly William Livingstone, afterwards Lord Kilsyth, of whom 
mention will be made elsewhere. A son was born also of this 
marriage, but in the autumn of 1695 both mother and child were 
killed by the fall of a house in Holland. Lord Kilsyth was " out in 
the Fifteen," and died an outlaw at Eome in 1733, after which the 
title became extinct. Napier (hi., Appendix 2) gives a curious 
account of the opening of Lady Dundee's coffin more than a hundred 
years after her burial in the family vault at Kilsyth Church, 



1 06 Cla verhouse 

and Cargill, the Covenanters had been comparatively 
quiet. The work of pacification had indeed not slack- 
ened, but rather taken a fresh departure in the ap- 
pointment of a Court of High Commission, or Justiciary 
Circuit, which in the summer of 1683 was held in the 
towns of Stirling, Glasgow, Ayr, Dumfries, Jedburgh, 
and Edinburgh. Claverhouse was expressly ordered 
to attend the justices in their progress as captain of 
the forces, except at places where the Commander-in- 
Chief would naturally be present. But though the 
discovery of the Rye House Plot had just then stirred 
the kingdom to its centre, and given fresh energies 
both to the Government and its enemies, only three 
men suffered during this circuit, of whom two were 
convicted murderers. In each town members of the 
gentry as well as of the common people flocked to take 
the Test ; some to clear themselves of suspicion, others 
only to air their loyalty, but all, in the words of the 
report, cheerfully. Where time, moreover, was asked 
for consideration, it was granted on good security. But 
from the end of July, 1683, to the day of his marriage, 
Claverhouse seems to have been occupied almost en- 
tirely with his duties as Councillor at Edinburgh, and 
only to have left the capital for brief tours of inspec- 
tion through the western garrisons. 

But with the day of his marriage came a change. 
On the previous Sunday news had been brought to 
Glasgow of an unusually large and well-armed conven- 
ticle to be held at Blacklock, a moor on the borders of 
Lanarkshire and Stirlingshire. Dalziel (who was in 
church when the message came, but who did not suffer 
his duty towards God to interfere with his duty towards 



Chapter VI 107 

man) put the soldiers on the track at once ; but for the 
next eight-and-forty hours the country from Hamilton 
northwards to the ford of Clyde was scoured in vain. 
The Covenanters marched fast, and the country folk, 
many of them probably still fresh from the Test, kept 
their secret well. Claverhouse was sent for in haste 
from Paisley. He was in the saddle and away before 
the bridal party could recover from their first shock of 
surprise. But even Claverhouse was foiled. His lieu- 
tenant, however, had better luck. Colonel Buchan, as 
he was returning to Paisley by way of Lismahago, came 
upon an ambuscade of two hundred Covenanters, whose 
advanced post fired on and wounded one of the soldiers. 1 
" They followed the rogues," wrote Claverhouse to Queens- 
berry, " and advertised Colonel Buchan ; but before he 
could come up, our party had lost sight of them. Colonel 
Buchan is yet in pursuit and I am just taking horse. I 

1 " So when we came to Streven (Strathavon), T left the command 
to Colonel Buchan, and desired him to return the troops to their 
quarters ; but, in his march, to search the skirts of the hills and 
moors on the Clydesdale side ; which he did, and gave me an 
account that, going in by the Greenock-head, he met a man that 
lives down on Clydeside, that was up buying wool, who told him 
that on Lidburn, which is in the heart of the hills on the Clydesdale 
side, he had seen a great number of rebels in arms, and told how he 
had considered the commanders of them. One of them, he said, 
was a lusty black man with one eye, and the other was a good-like 
man, and wore a grey hat. The first had on a velvet cap. But 
before he (Colonel Buchan) could come near the place, a party of 
foot, that he had sent to march < n his right, fell accidentally on 
them. Four of our soldiers going before to discover, were fired on 
by seven that started up out of a glen, and one of ours was wounded. 
They fired at the rebels, who, seeing our party of foot making up, 
and the horse in sight, took the alarm, and gained the hills, which 
was all moss." Claverhouse to the Archbishop of Saint Andrews 
(Alexander Burnet), Paisley, Jane 16th, 1G84. 



1 08 Cla verhouse 

shall be revenged some time or other of this unseasonable 
trouble these dogs give me. They might have let Tues- 
day pass." This despatch was written from Paisley on 
the morning of the 13th, while fresh horses were being 
saddled. By noon he was off again, and for the next 
three days rode fast and far, leaving " no den, no knowl, 
no moss, no hill unsearched." He could track his game 
from Aird's Moss to within two miles of Cumnock town, 
and thence on towards Cairntable. But there all traces 
of them had vanished. 

" We could never hear more of them. I sent on Friday 
night for my troop from Dumfries, and ordered them to 
march by the Sanquhar to the Muirkirk, to the Plough- 
lands, and so to Streven. I sent for Captain Strachan's 
troop from the Glenkens, and ordered him to march to the 
old castle of Cumloch, down to the Some, and through the 
country to Kilbryde, leaving Mauchlin and Newmills on 
his left, and Loudon-hill on his right. By this means they 
scoured this country, and secured the passages that way. 
Colonel Buchan marched witji the foot and the dragoons 
some miles on the right of my troop, and I, with the Guards 
and my Lord Boss and his troop, up by the [Shaire?]. We 
were at the head of Douglas. We were round and over 
Cairntable. We were at Greenock-head, Cummer-head, 
and through all the moors, mosses, hills, glens, woods ; and 
spread in small parties, and ranged as if we had been at 
hunting, and down to Blackwood, but could learn nothing 
of those rogues. So the troops being extremely harassed 
with marching so much on grounds never trod on before, I 
have sent them with Colonel Buchan to rest at Dalmel- 
lington, till we see where these rogues will start up. We 
examined all on oath, and offered money, and threatened 
terribly, for intelligence, but we could learn no more." l 

1 Claverhouse to the Archbishop, Paisley, June 16th ? 1684. 



Chapter VI 1 09 

The "rogues" were to start up soon and with a 
vengeance. On a day in July (the date is not specified) 
a party of troopers were escorting sixteen prisoners to 
Dumfries. They were Claverhouse's men, but their 
captain was not with them. At Enterkin Hill, a 
narrow pass with a deep precipice on either side, a 
rescue was attempted by a considerable body of men, 
— English Borderers, it was whispered. Some of the 
prisoners escaped : others were killed in the scuffle or 
broke their necks over the precipice : only two were 
brought into Edinburgh : a few of the soldiers were also 
killed. This audacious affair spurred the Government 
on to new energies. The garrisons were increased 
through all the western shires. Claverhouse, with 
Buchan for his second in command, was put in charge 
of all the forces in Ayrshire and Clydesdale, and a 
special civil commission was added to their military 
powers. 

At length, towards the end of August, there was a 
lull, and the master of Dudhope was able at last to 
enjoy the society of his bride and the pleasures of a 
country life. But of the latter he soon grew weary. 
u Though I stay a few days here," he wrote to Queens- 
berry on August 25th, " I hope none will reproach me 
of eating the bread of idleness." That, at least, is a 
reproach his worst enemies have never tried to fasten 
on him. To be doing something was, indeed, a neces- 
sity of his existence ; and his duties as Constable soon 
furnished him with something to do. In the Tolbooth 
of Dundee lay a number of poor wretches whom the 
hard laws of the time had sentenced to death for various 
offences, the gravest of which did not rise above theft. 



1 1 o Cla verho use 

It was within the Constable's power to order them at 
any moment for execution ; and doubtless some of those 
who have meddled with his life, had they been aware of 
this circumstance in it, would have risked the conclu- 
sion that he did so. Yet, strange as it may seem, he 
exerted himself to save the prisoners. And he exerted 
himself so successfully that not only was the capital 
sentence reprieved to such milder punishment as he 
might order, but the same license was granted to him 
for dealing with all future criminals of the same class. 1 

1 " Privy Council Eegister," Edinburgh, September 10th, 1684: 
Napier, ii. 410. 



Ill 



CHAPTER VII. 1 

I PROPOSE now to examine, with more care than there 
has yet been occasion for, those charges of wanton and 
illegal cruelty which have for close upon two centuries 
formed the basis of the popular — I had almost written 
the historical— conception of the character of Claver- 
house. I have used the words " illegal cruelty" because 
Olaverhouse is not only commonly believed to have 
far surpassed all his contemporaries in his treatment of 
the Scottish Covenanters, but to have even gone beyond 
the sanction of a law little disposed to be illiberal in such 
matters. Some reason has, I trust, been already shown 
for at least reconsidering the popular verdict. But as 
we are now approaching that period of his life when, 
for a time all too short for his own reputation, Claver- 
house at last found free play for those eminent abilities 
which none have denied him, it will be well, before 
passing into this larger field, to be finally rid of a most 
tiresome and distasteful duty. The controversial element 
is, I fear, inseparable from this part of the subject, but 
I shall endeavour to do with as little of it as possible. 

1 I have been much indebted in this chapter to an anonymous 
pamphlet entitled " A Note to the Pictorial History of Scotland, on 
Olaverhouse," apparently printed at Maidstone; but when, or on 
whose authority, I have been unable to discover. It was sent to 
me by an equally nameless benefactor. 



1 1 2 Cla verhousb 

Although the significant title of " the Killing Time " 
seems to have been occasionally used in Scotland during 
the subsequent century to cover the whole period from 
Lauderdale's administration to the Revolution, yet the 
phrase was originally and more properly applied to the 
years of James's reign alone. The most notorious of 
the acts attributed to Claverhouse were, as a fact, com- 
mitted within that time ; but it will be more convenient 
not to adhere too rigidly to chronological sequence, and 
to take the charges rather in order of their notoriety 
and of the importance of those who have assumed them 
to be true. Following this order, the two first on the 
list will naturally be the death, by Claverhouse's own 
hand, of John Brown, and the deaths, by drowning 
on the sands of Solway Firth, of the two women, 
Margaret Maclachlan and Margaret Wilson — popularly 
known as the Wigtown Martyrs. 

An attempt has been made to prove that this last 
affair is a pure romance of Covenanting tradition. It 
has never been disputed that the women were tried for 
high treason (that is to say, for refusing to abjure the 
Covenant and to attend Episcopal worship) and con- 
demned to death ; but it has been denied that the sen- 
tence was ever carried into effect, on the strength of a 
reprieve granted by the Council at Edinburgh before the 
day of execution. That a reprieve, or rather a remand, 
was granted is certain, as the pages of the Council 
register remain to this day to testify. But it is not so 
certain that the decision of the Council at Edinburgh 
ever reached the magistrates at Wigtown ; and that, if it 
did reach them, they at least paid no attention to it, 
remained for upwards of a century and a half the fixed 



Chapter VII 113 

opinion of all writers and readers of history. The women 
were sentenced on April 18th, 1685 : the remand is dated 
April 30th, but the period for which it was to run has 
been left blank, pending the result of a recommenda- 
tion for full pardon with which it was accompanied : 
the sentence was executed on May 11th — in "Wodrow's 
words, " a black and very remarkable day for blood in 
several places." 

It will be sufficient to indicate where the arguments 
employed to discredit this affair may be found. 1 They 
do not practically amount to more than this — that as a 
reprieve was certainly granted in the Council Chamber 
at Edinburgh, the execution could not possibly have 
taken place on the sands of the Solway. The case is 
indeed one which those who will accept nothing that 
cannot be proved with mathematical certainty will al- 
ways find reasons for doubting ; but at least they must 
have read the history of those times to little purpose if 
they can accept such an argument as conclusive. For 
the rest, it will be enough to say that the story first 
found its way into print in 1687, and that it was more 
circumstantially repeated in 1711, when the records of 
the Kirk Session of the parish of Penninghame were 
published by direction of the General Assembly. At 
that time Thomas Wilson, a brother of the younger 
sufferer, was still alive, with many others to whom the 
Killing-Time was something very much more than a 

1 Napier, iii. Appendix 3, and his " Case for the Crown " : 
Blackwood's Magazine, December 1863. On the other side see 
Burton, vii. 255: Macmillan's Magazine, December 1862; and a 
pamphlet by the Rev. Archibald Stewart, " History Vindicated in 
the case of the Wigtown Martyrs," 2nd ed. 1869. 

I 



1 1 4 Cla verhouse 

tradition. In 1714 (possibly to a later date, but cer- 
tainly in that year) a stone in Penninghame churchyard 
still marked the grave of Margaret "Wilson, and told the 
story of her death. 1 The ruins of the church may still 
be seen, but the stone has long ago gone to join the 
dust that was once the bones of Margaret; and an 
obelisk, raised within our own times on the high ground 
outside the busy little seaport, now serves in statelier, if 
less vital, fashion to recall to the traveller the memory 
of the Martyrs of Wigtown. It is difficult to believe 
that a story so well and widely recorded, and so firmly 
implanted in the hearts of so many generations of men, 
can have absolutely no foundation in fact. 2 It is indeed 
possible that time has embellished the bald brutality of 
the deed, though the graphic narrative of Macaulay is 
practically that which Wodrow took from the records 
of Penninghame. But that the two women were 

1 According to " The Cloud of Witnesses," first published in 
1714, the epitaph ran as follows : 

" Murdered for owning Christ supreme 

Head of his Church, and no more crime 

But her not owning Prelacy, 

And not abjuring Presbytery. 

Within the sea, tied to a stake, 

She suffered for Christ Jesus' sake." 
The stone on which these lines were inscribed covered, according 
to the same authority, " the body of Margaret Wilson, who was 
drowned in the water of the Blednock upon the 11th of May, 1684 
[5], by the Laird of Lagg." 

2 In Colonel Fergusson's most entertaining chapter of family 
history, " The Laird of Lagg," he mentions an old lady, still alive 
in 1834, who remembered her grandfather's account of the execution, 
which he declared he had himself witnessed : " There were cluds 
o' folk on the sands that day in clusters here and there, praying for 
the women as they were put down." 



Chapter VII 115 

drowned in the waters of the Blednock on May 11th, 
1685, is surely a fact as well authenticated as any in the 
martyrology of the Scottish Covenant. 

There is, as I have said, an excellent reason for not 
dragging my readers through the obscure and barren 
mazes of this controversy ; and like all good reasons it 
is a very simple one. Claverhouse was present neither 
at the trial nor the execution. He had, indeed, no 
more to do with the deaths of these two women than 
Cameron, who had been five years in his grave, or 
Wodrow, who was but five years old. It is true that 
one of his family was present, but this was his brother, 
David Graham, Deputy Sheriff of Galloway, and but 
lately made one of the Lords Justices of Wigtownshire. 
Macaulay does not directly name Claverhouse as con- 
cerned in this affair ; but it is one out of five selected 
by the historian as samples of the crimes by which u he, 
and men like him, goaded the Western peasantry into 
madness " — a consummation which, it may be observed 
in passing, had been effected twelve years before Claver- 
house had drawn sword in Scotland. It is not certain 
that Macaulay believed the Graham who sat in judgment 
on these women to have been John Graham of Claver- 
house. But it is certain that the effect of his narrative 
has been, in the minds of most English-speaking men, 
to add this also to the long list of mythical crimes 
which have blackened the memory of the hero of Killie- 
crankie. 1 

But over the other affair there rests no shadow of 

1 Charles Kingsley, for example, wrote in " Alton Locke " of 
"the Scottish Saint Margaret whom Claverhouse and his men bound 
to a stake." 

1 2 



1 1 5 Cla verhouse 

doubt. That Claverhouse, and he alone, is responsible 
for the death of John Brown stands on the very best 
authority, for it stands on his own. It is not, indeed, 
certain that he shot the man with his own hand. 
This is Wodrow's story, and as usual he gives no autho- 
rity for it. " With some difficulty," he writes, 

" he was allowed to pray, which he did with the greatest 
liberty and melting, and withal in such suitable and scrip- 
tural expressions, and in a peculiar judicious style, he 
having great measures of the gift as well as the grace of 
prayer, that the soldiers were affected and astonished ; yea, 
which is yet more singular, such convictions were left in 
their bosoms that, as my informations bear, not one of them 
would shoot him or obey Claverhouse's commands, so that 
he was forced to turn executioner himself, and in a fret 
shot him with his own hand, before his own door, his wife 
with a young infant standing by, and she very near the 
time of her delivery of another child. When tears and 
entreaties could not prevail, and Claverhouse had shot him 
dead, I am credibly informed the widow said to him, ' Well, 
sir, you must give an account of what you have done.' 
Claverhouse answered, ' To men I can be answerable, and 
as for God, I'll take him into my own hand.' I am well 
informed that Claverhouse himself frequently acknowledged 
afterwards that John Brown's prayer left such impressions 
upon his spirit that he could never get altogether worn off, 
when he gave himself liberty to think of it." x 

Patrick Walker, the pedlar, writing a very few 
years after Wodrow (whom he notices only to abuse 
for his inaccuracy and backsliding), and professing to 
have got his version from the wife, tells a different tale. 
iC Claverhouse," he says, " ordered six soldiers to shoot 
1 Wodrow, iv. 244. 



Chapter VII 117 

him. The most part of the bullets came upon his head, 
which scattered his brains upon the ground." Of any 
refusal, or even disinclination, on the part of the soldiers 
to obey their orders there is not a word. Then we have 
Claverhouse's own report to Queensberry, written two 
days later from Galston, a village between Kilmarnock 
and Ayr. 

"On Friday last, amongst the hills betwixt Douglas 
and the Ploughlands, we pursued two fellows a great way 
through the mosses, and in end seized them. They had no 
arms about them, and denied they had any. But being 
asked if they would take the abjuration, the eldest of the 
two, called John Brown, refused it ; nor would he swear 
not to rise in arms against the King, but said he knew no 
king. Upon which, and there being found bullets and 
match in his house, and treasonable papers, I caused shoot 
him dead \ which he suffered very unconcernedly. The 
other, a young fellow and his nephew, called John Brownen, 
offered to take the oath, but would not swear that he had 
not been at Newmills in arms, at rescuing of the prisoners. 
So I did not know what to do with him. I was convinced 
that he was guilty, but saw not how to proceed against him. 
Wherefore, after he had said his prayers, and carabines 
presented to shoot him, I offered to him that, if he would 
make an ingenuous confession, and make a discovery that 
might be of any importance for the King's service, I should 
delay putting him to death, and plead for him. Upon 
which he confessed that he was at that attack of Newmills, 
and that he had come straight to this house of his uncle's 
on Sunday morning. In the time he was making this con- 
fession the soldiers found out a house in the hill, under 
ground, that could hold a dozen of men, and there were 
swords and pistols in it ; and this fellow declared that 
they belonged to his uncle, and that he had lurked in that 



1 1 8 Cla verho use 

place ever since Bothwell, where he was in arms. . . . He 
also gives account of those who gave any assistance to his 
uncle ; and we have seized thereupon the goodman of the 
uppermost Ploughlands, and another tenant about a mile 
below that is fled upon it. ... I have acquitted myself 
when I have told your Grace the case. He has been but a 
month or two with his halbert ; and if your Grace thinks 
he deserves no mercy, justice will pass on him ; for I, having 
no commission of justiciary myself, have delivered him up 
to the Lieutenant- General, to be disposed of as he pleases." 1 

It is singular that neither , Wodrow nor Walker 
makes any mention of this nephew, whose presence on 
that day, taken in connection with his share in the 
affair at Newmills, 2 puts the uncle in rather a different 
light. There happen also to be one or two affairs 
known about this John Brown which are worth noting. 
For instance, his name is found on a list of proscribed 
rebels and resetters of rebels, appended to a royal 
proclamation of May 5th, 1684, which will naturally 

1 Claverhouse to Queensberry, May 3rd, 1685. Napier, i. 141 ; 
and iii. 457. 

2 " John Inglis, captain of a troop of dragoons, lying in garrison 
at Newmills, in the West, a house belonging to the Earl of Loudon, 
having taken some of these fanatics prisoners, and though he had 
power to execute them, yet keeping them alive, some of their 
desperate comrades breaks in upon the garrison and rescues them, 
to their great shame ; for which Inglis was degraded, and his place 
was given to Mr. George Winrahame, a bigot Papist." Fountainhall, 
quoted by Napier, iii. 457. This Winrahame may be the Winram 
who had to do with the Wigtown Martyrs. According to "The 
Cloud of Witnesses," 

" The actors of this cruel crime 
Was Lagg, Strachan, Winram, and Grahame." 
A letter more or less in a name was of no account in the cacography 
of those times. 



Chapter VII 119 

account for his " having been a long time upon his 
hiding in the hills," as Wodrow ingenuously confesses. 
In other words, this Brown was an outlaw and a marked 
man. He was by profession a carrier — u the Chris- 
tian carrier," his friends called him, for the fervour and 
eloquence of his preaching, which was remarkable even 
in a neighbourhood where the gift of tongues was not 
uncommon. A carrier is an extremely useful channel 
of communication ; and, in fact, there can be really no 
doubt that Brown had been for some time engaged in 
practices which the most iniquitous Government in the 
world could hardly be blamed for thinking inconvenient. 
It has been suggested that Claverhouse was at that 
time especially on the watch to intercept all communica- 
tion between Argyle and Monmouth, and that Brown 
was employed in carrying intelligence between the rebel 
camps. Macaulay refuses this suggestion. He points 
out with perfect truth that both Argyle and Monmouth 
were at that time in Holland. But when he goes on 
to say that there was no insurrection in any part of our 
island, he goes rather too far. The western shires of 
Scotland had been in a state of insurrection ever since 
the Pentland rising, if there be any meaning in the word 
at all. And, though it is true that on May 1st (the day 
of Brown's death) Argyle was in Holland, it is no less 
true that on the second he had left Holland for Scotland ; 
that since April 21st the Privy Council had been well 
informed of his designs ; that measures had been taken for 
putting the whole kingdom in a state of defence against 
him ; and that arrests had been already made on account 
of treasonable correspondence with him. 1 But the ques- 
1 " The new reign was not to remain long undisturbed ; before the 



1 20 Cla verho use 

tion is not one of probabilities, and moreover against 
these probabilities it may be very fairly urged that 
Claverhouse's own despatch proves that the nephew's 
confession and the discovery of the underground ar- 
moury were not made till after the uncle's death. 
Nor is there any word in this despatch to show that 
Olaverhouse had any previous knowledge of Brown 
or was acting on particular information. The real 
question, and the only question, is, was Olaverhouse 
legally — not morally, that belongs to another part of 
the case — was he legally justified in ordering the man 
to be shot? To this there can be but one answer, 
so long as the phrase " legal justification " bears the 
meaning it has hitherto borne for those who use the 
English tongue : both by the spirit and the letter of his 
commission he was justified in what he did. By the 
law of the Government whose servant Olaverhouse then 
was, the death of John Brown on that Ayrshire moor was 
as lawful an act as the death on the scaffold of any 
prisoner to-day found guilty by a jury of his country- 
men. In October, 1684, the Covenanters had pub- 
lished a declaration, drawn up by Eenwick, of their 
intention to do unto all their enemies whom they could 
lay hands on, civil no less than military, as their 
enemies had done and should do unto them • and the 

end of April there was the apprehension of a great civil war, and 
in May the news came that it had begun both in England and 
Scotland." These are Burton's words (vii. 258), and no one can 
accuse Burton of undue partiality to James or his government. See 
also Aytoun's Appendix to his "Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers," 
which, however, was written before the publication of Napier's 
book had proved Claverhouse's responsibility for the death of John 
Brown. 



Chapter VII 121 

deliberate murder of two troopers of the Life Guards 
in the following month had shown (what, to be sure, 
can have needed very little proof) that this was no idle 
threat. 1 An Act, therefore, was hastily passed to the 
effect that, " Any person who owns or will not disown 
the late treasonable declaration on oath, whether they 
have arms or not, be immediately put to death, this 
being always done in the presence of two witnesses, 
and the person or persons having commission to that 
effect." With the severity, the folly, or the injustice 
of such a law we are not for the moment concerned. 
The fact remains that such was the law ; and Olaver- 

1 Wodrow, iv. 148-9. He prints the declaration in full from a 
copy in Kenwick's own handwriting. The following extracts will 
give some idea of it : " We have disowned the authority of Charles 
Stuart (not authority as God's institution, either among Christians 
or heathens) and all authority depending upon him, for reasons 
given elsewhere (disclaiming all such things as infer a magistratical 
relation betwixt him and us) ; and also we have declared war against 
him, and his accomplices such as lay out themselves to promote his 
wicked and hellish designs. . . . We do hereby declare unto all that 
whosoever stretcheth forth their hands against us ... by shedding 
our blood actually, either by authoritative commanding, such as 
bloody counsellors . . . especially that so-called justiciary, generals 
of forces, adjutants, captains, lieutenants, and all in civil and 
military power, who make it their work to embrue their hands in 
our blood, or by obeying such commands, such as bloody militia 
men, malicious troopers, soldiers, and dragoons ; likewise such 
gentlemen and commons who, through wickedness and ill-will, ride 
and run with the foresaid persons ... we say all and every one of 
such shall be reputed by us enemies to God and the covenanted 
work of reformation, and punished as such, according to our power 
and the degree of their offence. . . . Let not any think that (our 
God assisting us) we will be so slack-handed in time coming to put 
matters in execution as heretofore we have been, seeing we are 
bound faithfully and valiantly to maintain our covenants and the 
cause of Christ." 



122 CLA VERHO USE 

house transgressed no jot of it in ordering John Brown 
to death. It was no question of form of religion : it 
was no question of previous misconduct. The man 
would not take the oath ; and he was accordingly shot 
in the presence of the requisite number of witnesses by 
the order of a competent authority. 

On the truth of the details given both by Wodrow 
and Walker it is impossible to form any conclusion. 
Wodrow gives no authority for his version. " I am 
well informed," he says, " I am credibly informed," 
and so on; but the sources of his information he 
nowhere gives. Walker is more communicative; he, 
as we have seen, professed to have learned his story 
from Brown's wife ; but no statement of Walker's can 
be accepted for absolute truth, and his uncertainty 
about even the names of his witnesses does not add the 
stamp of conviction to their testimony. 1 Beyond the 
bare fact that the man was - shot in the presence of 
Claverhouse nothing is certain. On the rest of the 
story each must make up his mind as seems best to 
him. 

With the death of Peter Gillies and John Bryce 
Claverhouse is not directly charged by Wodrow. Walker, 
however, quotes an epitaph said to have been inscribed 

1 For example, in the earliest edition of the pamphlet containing 
his version of this affair (" The Life of Peden ") an " old singular 
Christian woman named Elizabeth Menzies " is mentioned as the 
first neighbour who came to condole with Mrs. Brown. In later 
editions Elizabeth Menzies becomes Jean Brown. The wife also is 
sometimes Isabel and sometimes Marion. Walker's " Biographia 
Presbyteriana " is a collection of tracts published by him at 
different times, of which this " Life of Peden " is the earliest, and 
the best. 



Chapter VII 1 2 3 

on the grave of these men, who, with three others, were 
hanged, without trial, at Mauchline by 

" Bloody Dumbarton, Douglas, and Dundee, 
Moved by the devil and the Laird of Lee." 

These lines must have been composed some years after 
the event, inasmuch as the men were hanged on May 6th, 
1685, and the patent of Olaverhouse's peerage bears the 
date November 12th, 1688. This proves, what indeed 
few people can have doubted, that the damning testi- 
mony of " The Cloud of Witnesses " wants at least the 
weight of contemporary evidence. An authority, how- 
ever, for this particular epitaph can be traced back to 
1690, when Alexander Shields published his martyr- 
ology. 1 " The said Claverhouse," he wrote, "together 
with the Earl of Dumbarton and Lieut. -General Douglas, 
caused Peter Gillies, John Bryce, Thomas Young (who 
was taken by the Laird of Lee), William Piddisone, and 
John Buiening to be put to death upon a gibbet, with- 
out legal trial or sentence, suffering them neither to 
have a Bible nor to pray before they died." 2 Defoe has 
evidently followed Shields ; 3 but Walker, though he 

1 " A Short Memorial of the Sufferings of the Presbyterians." 

2 This Buiening is called Bruning in " The Cloud of Witnesses," 
and may be the Brownen of Olaverhouse's letter, that is to say, the 
nephew of John Brown. 

3 " It seems somebody had maliciously told this Graham they 
were of the Whigs who used the field meetings, upon which, 
without any trial or other sentence than his own command, his 
soldiers fetched them all to Mauchline, a village where his head- 
quarters were, and hanged them immediately, not suffering them to 
enter into any house at their coming, nor at the entreaty of the 
poor men would suffer one to lend them a Bible, who it seems 
offered it, nor allow them a moment to pray to God." Defoe's 



1 24 Cla verho use 

quotes the aforesaid epitaph, does not himself implicate 
Claverhouse. 

Wodrow does not appear to have heard any of these 
stories. He names only Gillies and Bryce, quoting 
from the indictment, which does not specify the other 
sufferers, to show that the men were tried before General 
Drummond and a tribunal of fifteen soldiers on May 5th, 
and hanged on the following day. We have already 
seen that a few days previously Claverhouse had sent 
a prisoner for trial to this same General Drummond, 
because he had himself at that time no commission to 
try prisoners. Unless, therefore, we are ready to suppose 
that officers were in the habit of sitting on a jury with 
their own troopers, or to believe that within three days 
a change had taken place in Claverhouse's position of 
which there is no record either in his own letters or in 
any other existing document, we must accept Wodrow's 
narrative as the true one, and exonerate Claverhouse 
from all responsibility for the deaths of Gillies and 
his unfortunate fellow-sufferers. 

Two cases yet remain of the five cited by Macaulay. 
With one of these — the case of the three men shot near 
Glasgow for refusing to pray for the King — no writer 
has ever pretended to implicate Claverhouse personally ; 

" Memoirs of the Church of Scotland " were first published in 1717, 
a few years before Wodrow's History. Elsewhere in the same work 
he states that Claverhouse had "among the rest of his cruelties 
barbarously murdered several of the persecuted people with his own 
hands," also that " this man is said to have killed above a hundred 
men in this kind of cold blood cruelty." But Defoe's qualifications 
for a historian of those times are, to say the least, uncertain. He 
mentions Cameron and Cargill as alive and busy in 1684, four years 
after one had died fighting at Aird's Moss, and the other on the 
scaffold at Edinburgh. 



Chapter VII 125 

but with the other he is directly concerned. Andrew 
Hislop was the son of a poor widow in whose house a 
proscribed Covenanter had lately died. This was dis- 
covered by one Johnstone of Westerhall, an apostate 
Presbyterian, and, like most of his class, particularly 
bitter against his former associates. He turned the 
woman with her younger children into the fields, pulled 
down her house, and dragged the eldest son before Claver- 
house, then marching through that part of the country. 
So Macaulay tells the story, following for once the 
" Cloud of Witnesses " rather than Wodrow. According 
to the latter, Claverhouse found Hislop wandering 
about the fields, and carried him before Westerhall, 
" without any design, as appeared, to murder him." 
Westerhall voted for instant death, while Claverhouse 
pleaded for the lad, and only yielded at last on the 
other's insistence, saying: " The blood of this poor man 
be upon you, Westerhall. I am free of it." He there- 
upon ordered the captain of a Highland company, then 
brigaded with his own men, to provide a firing-party ; 
but the Highlanders angrily refused, and the troopers 
had to do the work. Both versions, it will be seen, 
agree in representing Claverhouse as inclined to mercy 
but overborne by Westerhall. The question remains, 
how was it that the former, a masterful man and not 
easy to be silenced when he was in the right, could not 
save this poor lad if he had a mind to do so ? 

The answer is in truth not easy to find. The ex- 
planation that Westerhall was at that particular time 
superior in authority to Claverhouse will hardly serve. It 
is true that the latter had just then no civil jurisdiction 
at all, either to condemn or pardon — no commission of 



1 26 Cla verhouse 

justiciary, as he wrote to Queensberry. He had been 
since the close of the previous year in disgrace at 
headquarters, in consequence of a quarrel between 
him and the Treasurer, arising out of some action of 
Colonel James Douglas, the latter' s brother, of which 
Claverhouse seems to have expressed his disapproval 
rather too warmly. His name had accordingly been 
removed from the list of Privy Councillors soon after 
James's accession, and himself deprived of all his civil 
powers. His punishment did not indeed last long, 
nor was it allowed to affect his military rights. An 
order for his restoration to the Council had been signed 
on the very day of Hislop's death (though he did not 
take his seat again till July), but his civil powers had 
not been renewed. Westerhall was one of those who 
had in the previous year been empowered by royal 
commission to try prisoners, and his commission was 
still running when Claverhouse was disgraced. But 
on April 20th General Drummond was appointed 
to the supreme authority in all the southern and 
western shires, and his appointment was expressly de- 
clared to cancel all other civil commissions previously 
granted. Unless, therefore, some particular reserva- 
tion had been made in Westerhall's favour, of which 
there is no existing record, he had no more jurisdiction 
than Claverhouse, and both were equally guilty of 
breaking the law. It was, indeed, still open to Claver- 
house to act as he had acted with John Brown— to 
put the abjuration oath, and, on its being refused, to 
order the recusant to instant execution. There is no 
mention by any of the Covenanting writers that this 
oath was offered to Hislop. But unless it was, it is 



Chapter VII 127 

difficult to see how either Westerhall or Claverhouse 
could have been empowered to kill him. Nor is it 
likely that the latter, knowing well how many sharp 
eyes were on the look-out in Edinburgh to catch him 
tripping, would have ventured on so flagrant a breach 
of the law. It must also be remembered that neither 
Wodrow nor Walker, nor any writer on that side, has 
charged Claverhouse with exceeding the law. They 
cry out against the cruelty of the deed, but on its un- 
lawfulness they are silent. We must suppose, there- 
fore, that Hislop's case was the case of John Brown : 
he had refused the oath, and was therefore liable to 
death. But we cannot suppose that if Claverhouse had 
stood firm he could not have saved the lad's life. It is 
absurd to believe that at the head of his own soldiers, 
with another captain of the same way of thinking by 
him, such a man as Claverhouse was not strong enough 
to carry his own will against one who had not even the 
powers of an ordinary justice of the peace. We must, 
therefore, conclude that he was unwilling at that time 
to run the risk of further disgrace by any charge of 
unreasonable leniency to rebels. Like Pilate, he was 
willing to let the prisoner go ; but, like Pilate again, 
he preferred his own convenience, and the prisoner was 
put to death. 

On Defoe's list of victims murdered, as he calls it, 
by Claverhouse's own hand is the name of Graham of 
Galloway. The young man, he says, being pursued by 
the dragoons, had taken refuge in his mother's house ; 
but being driven out thence was overtaken by Claver- 
house and shot dead with a pistol, though he offered to 
surrender and begged hard for his life. Shield so words 



128 Claverhouse 

his version of the story as to make it doubtful whether 
the shot was fired by Claverhouse himself. In the 
" Cloud of Witnesses" it is not even made certain that 
Claverhouse was present. At the close of the year in 
which this alleged murder was committed Sir John 
Dalrymple brought his action against Claverhouse. It 
is not likely that so shrewd a lawyer would have over- 
looked such a chance as this, a case of murder com- 
mitted in his own country ; for murder it would certainly 
have been, were Defoe's story true. In 1682 military ex- 
ecutions had not been sanctioned by law ; and for a soldier 
to shoot a man offering to surrender would have been as 
clear a case of murder as was the butchery on Magus 
Moor. Yet throughout Dalrymple's indictment is no 
hint of any such offence. Claverhouse is accused of 
oppression by excessive fines and illegal quartering of 
troops, of malversation, and so forth ; but of taking 
man's life unlawfully there is no single word. 

Another of Defoe's victims is Matthew Mekellwrath. 
Claverhouse, he says, riding through Camonel in Car- 
rick, saw a man run across the street in front of the 
soldiers, as though to get out of their way, and instantly 
ordered him to be shot, without any examination. In 
the " Cloud of Witnesses " an epitaph is quoted to 
show that the man was shot for refusing the abjuration 
oath. 

Next we find four men dragged out of a house at 
Auchencloy, on Dee-side, where they had met for prayer, 
and shot before the door, without any examination. 
Defoe gives the names of the four as John Grier, Robert 
Fergusson, Archibald Stuart, and Robert Stuart. Shields 
substitutes for Archibald Stuart the name of James 



Chapter VII 129 

Macmichael. In "The Cloud of Witnesses" only Grier, 
Robert Stuart, and Fergusson are named. In Wodrow's 
pages the four men become eight : of these four, as 
given by Shields (Macmichael, however, being spelt 
Macmichan), were shot at once: two more, Smith and 
Hunter, were carried to Kirkcudbright and hanged 
after a form of trial : two, unnamed, got safe away. 
" It may be," adds Wodrow, " the rescue of some 
prisoners at Kirkcudbright by some of the wanderers, 
a little before this, was the pretext for all this cruelty." 
It may indeed have been so, and something more 
than a rescue of prisoners may have helped. The affair 
on Dee-side took place December 18th, 1684. On 
the 11th of the same month (just after Renwick's pro- 
clamation of war) a party of men, headed by James 
Macmichael, murdered Peter Peirson, minister of Cars- 
phairn, at his own door. Wodrow cannot shirk this 
fact : he finds it detestable, and generally denounced 
and disowned by the more respectable of the Coven- 
anters ; but he also manages to find as many excuses for 
it as he conveniently can in the provocation given by 
the victim. Peirson, he says, was " a surly, ill-natured 
man, and horridly severe." He was of great service to 
Lagg in ferreting out rebels, used to sit in court with 
him to advise him of the prisoners' characters, and gene- 
rally make himself obnoxious to the Covenanters. He 
was also accused of leaning to popery, and is said on one 
occasion to have openly defended the doctrine of pur- 
gatory ; on another he maintained Papists to be much 
better subjects than Presbyterians — as, indeed, from the 
Government's point of view they certainly were. How far 
Peirson deserved this character we cannot surely tell. 

K 



1 30 Cla verhouse 

The fact of his being hated by the Covenanters is not 
necessarily to his discredit ; but we may assume that he 
was not conciliatory in his speech, that he meddled more 
in civil matters than became his cloth, and, in short, was 
probably made much after the same pattern as some of 
the chosen vessels of the Covenanting tabernacle. He 
lived alone in his manse, without even a servant, but took 
care always to have his firearms handy. The accounts 
of the murder vary a little in detail. One says that he 
was killed in a scuffle arising out of his furious and un- 
provoked treatment of a deputation which waited on 
him at midnight, to request him to come outside and 
speak with some friends who meant him no harm— a 
request which in the circumstances he can hardly be 
blamed for having received with some degree of suspi- 
cion. But the most authentic version represents him 
as shot dead the instant he opened his door. Macmi- 
chael fired the shot, and the man who called Peirson 
out was Kobert Mitchell, nephew to James Mitchell, 
who was hanged five years previously for an attempt 
on Sharp's life. 1 

1 Wodrow, iv. 197 ; Napier, i. 89. I have called this the most 
authentic version because it professes to have come from the 
murderers themselves. It is to be found in a letter to Wodrow 
(printed by Napier) now in the Advocates' Library at Edinburgh. 
The date is 1715, and the writer, who only signs his initials, J. C, 
calls Wodrow "cousin." "I give you the account," he writes, 
i( from the best information it's possible to be got, viz., from 
Kobert Dun, in Woodheade of Carsphairn, and John Clark, then in 
that parish, now in Glenmont, in the parish of Strathone, anent the 
curate's death of Carsphairn, which they had from the actors' own 
mouths." Wodrow adds a little touch of his own — " Mr, Peirson 
with fury came out upon them with arms " — and is silent on the fact 
of Mitchell's presence. 



Chapter VII 131 

A week later, on December 18th, a party of Coven- 
anters more than one hundred strong burst into Kirk- 
cudbright (" the most irregular place in the kingdom," 
Claverhouse used to call it), killed the sentry who chal- 
lenged them, broke open the gaol, set all the prisoners 
free, and then marched victoriously off, beating the town 
drum, with such of their rescues as would go with them, 
and all the arms they could lay hands on. 

It is clear, then, from a comparison of the dates 
and names, that the men killed at Auchencloy were no 
innocent folk met together for prayer, but certainly in- 
cluded Peirson's murderer, and probably some of those 
concerned in the rescue at Kirkcudbright, as the place 
where they were surprised was but a few miles from 
that town. Moreover, it appears from another account 
that, so far from these men having been shot unresist- 
ingly, they were part of a larger force which had only 
been dispersed after a sharp skirmish. 1 

One more instance, and this part of my business 
will be done. Defoe names Robert Auchinleck as shot 
by Claverhouse without examination for not answering 
his challenge, the man, as was subsequently discovered, 
being too deaf to hear what was said to him. There 
is no mention elsewhere of Robert Auchinleck; but 
Shields includes in his list a man called Auchinleck, 
of Christian name unknown, who was killed in similar 
circumstances ; and Wodrow gives a different version of 
the death of one William Auchinleck, both assigning the 



1 Fountainhall's " Historical Notices," and a letter to Queens- 
berry from Sir Robert Dalzell and others, quoted by Napier, ii. 
427-8. 



132 Cla verho use 

act to one Captain Douglas, who was marching from 
Kirkcudbright with a company of foot. 1 

These instances have been chosen as the most 
notorious and the most circumstantially recorded of 
the indictments made against Olaverhouse. Of the 
traditions that gathered in the following century about 
his name I have taken no notice, nor of the vague 
charges brought by writers of still later date on no 
better authority than those traditions. 2 It was inevi- 
table that as time wore on these floating legends would 
be gathered to one common head, and that the most 
important figure would be selected to bear the sins of 
all. It is of course possible that many and more 
damning instances might be added to the foregoing 
list, of which the record has now perished. But the 
most that can be done is to take what the counsel for 
the prosecution have brought forward, and to examine 
it as strictly as can now be, possible. 

It must always be difficult to reconsider with abso- 
lute impartiality any verdict that has been generally 
accepted for close upon two hundred years. On the 
one hand, there is a not unnatural disinclination for the 

1 Wodrow, iv. 184. 

2 For example, the story told of Claverhouse sparing a man's 
life for the sport his capture had afforded, but ordering his ears to 
be shorn off. This may be found in a book called " Gleanings 
among the Mountains, or Traditions of the Covenanters," published 
at Edinburgh, in 1846, by the Kev. Robert Simpson, of Sanquhar. 
The same gentleman is responsible for an earlier volume, " The 
Times of Claverhouse," in which the Covenanters are described as a 
class of "quiet and orderly men," maintaining the standard of their 
gospel in "the most peaceful and inoffensive way." In neither 
volume is any authority offered for these stories : even the evidence 
of time and place is rarely vouchsafed. 



Chapter VI 1 133 

trouble necessary to re-open a ease already heard and 
judged : on the other, is a most natural inclination to 
take every fresh fact discovered, or every old blunder 
detected, as of paramount importance. The explorer 
in strange lands is too apt to take every mole-hill for 
a mountain. And when the verdict is one that has been 
endorsed by Macaulay, he must be a bold man indeed 
who thinks to upset it. Nevertheless, something has, 
I hope, been done to bear out my belief that Claver- 
house has been too harshly judged. No attempt has 
been made to gloss over or conceal any crime that can 
be brought fairly home to him. The case of Andrew 
Hyslop (a far blacker case than the more notorious one 
of John Brown) has been left as it stands, so far as the 
imperfect evidence enables us now to judge it. If that 
one case be held enough to substantiate the general 
verdict, if nothing can be set against it, there is no 
more to be said — save that, if this be justice, many a 
better man than Olaverhouse must go to the wall. 

One thing, at least, should be clear. He was no 
capricious and unlicensed oppressor of a God-fearing 
and inoffensive peasantry, but a soldier waging war 
against a turbulent population carrying arms and wil- 
ling to use them. I have nowhere tried to soften the 
bitter tale of folly, misrule, and cruelty which drove 
those unhappy men into rebellion, nor to heighten 
by a single touch their responsibility for their own 
misfortunes. I have not tried to find excuses for 
the men whose orders Olaverhouse obeyed, nor argu- 
ments to show that in the circumstances such orders 
were inevitable. But I have tried to show that in 
no single instance, of which the record is complete, 



1 3 4 Cla verho use 

did he go beyond the letter of his commission, and 
that in more than one instance he construed its spirit 
with a mildness for which he has never yet been given 
credit. 

But nothing will avail to save him in the eyes of 
those who maintain that the law of human morality is 
fixed and immutable, and that men of every age and 
every country can only be judged, and must be judged, 
by the eternal laws of right and wrong. They, of course, 
will not allow the excuse that he was a soldier obeying 
the orders of his superior officers, even should they be 
disposed to admit that he did no more than that. The 
orders, they will say, were cruel and unjust : he should 
have refused to obey them. But is this unswerving 
standard possible as a gauge of human actions ? Who 
then shall be safe ? There are offences which, in Cole- 
ridge's happy phrase, are offences against the good 
manners of human nature itself. The man who com- 
mitted such offences in the reign of Ohedorlaomer was 
no doubt as guilty as the man who should commit them 
in the reign of Victoria. But are the offences which 
can be fairly laid to Claverhouse's account of such a 
kind? His most able and his bitterest accuser pro- 
nounces him to have been " rapacious and profane, of 
violent temper and obdurate heart." Yet every attempt 
of his enemies to convict him of extortion or malversa- 
tion broke signally down. The decorum of his life and 
conversation was allowed even by the Covenanters ; and 
it is recorded as a notable thing that, however disturbed 
or thwarted, he was never known to use profane lan- 
guage. The imperturbable calm of his temper is said 
by one of their own party to have at once exasperated 



Chapter VII 1 3 5 

and terrified those who were brought before him far 
more than the brutal fury of men like Dalziel and Lag. 1 
His heart was indeed hard to those whom he regarded 
as plotters and murderers, traitors to their King and 
enemies of the true religion. He was indeed in his own 
way as much a fanatic as the men whom he was em- 
powered to crush. His devotion to the Crown and to 
the Protestant faith was a passion as deep and sincere 
as that which moved the simple peasants of the West 
to find the gospel of Christ in the horrible compound 
of blasphemy and treason which too often made up the 
eloquence of the Conventicles. But his hardness, if 
not tempered with mercy, was at least guided by more 
justice than was common among his colleagues. He 
both advocated and practised the policy of distinguish- 
ing between the multitude and their ringleaders. The 
just punishment of one of the latter might save, he said, 
many of the former ; 2 and his entreaty for the pri- 
soners whom he found under sentence of death at 
Dundee proves that his actions were dictated by no 
vulgar thirst for blood. When judged by the general 
manners of the age, the circumstances of the time and 
his position, I do not believe him to have been cruel 
by nature or careless of human life. The standard of 
military morals in vogue two hundred years ago cannot 
be weighed by that in vogue to-day. The humanity of 
one generation is not the humanity of the next. Wel- 

1 Walker's " Biographia Presbyteriana : " Lochiel's Memoirs. 

2 See ante, p. 92: also Napier, ii. 360, for a letter to the Lord 
Chancellor, June 9th, 1683. "I am as sorry to see a man die, even 
a Whig, as any of themselves. But when one dies justly, for his 
own faults, and mav save a hundred to fall in the like, I have no 
scruple," 



136 Claverhouse 

lington was certainly not a cruel man, and he certainly 
was a most strict disciplinarian. Yet it is well known 
that many things were done during the Peninsular 
campaign which no general now would dare to pass un- 
punished, which no soldier now would even dare to do ; 
and it is quite possible that eighty years hence our de- 
scendants will read with horror of the deeds done by their 
grandsires among the rocky passes of Afghanistan or on 
the burning sands of Egypt. I do not claim for Claver- 
house that he was gentle, merciful, or humane beyond 
his time, though I believe him to have had as large a 
share of those qualities as any of his contemporaries 
would have displayed in similar circumstances. But I 
do claim for him that his faults were the faults not of 
the man but of his age ; and I maintain that his age 
cannot in such matters be tried by the standard of this. 



137 



CHAPTER VIII. 

Both in Scotland and England events were now 
moving fast to their inevitable conclusion, but of 
Claverhouse's part in public affairs there is for the 
next three years little record. Only two of his letters 
have survived between May, 1685, and October, 1688, 
when the disastrous march into England began. Prom 
one of these it is clear that his restoration to favour at 
Whitehall had not improved his position at Edinburgh. 
Gratitude was not then a common virtue among public 
men. Claverhouse had done for his colleagues all that 
he had promised. The recollection of their debt to 
him, and the unlikelihood of their being able to in- 
crease it, did not serve to endear to them this successful 
soldier of fortune, who had indeed helped them to their 
ambition, but who had thereby shown a dangerous capa- 
city for helping himself. At the head of these malcon- 
tents was, of course, Queensberry, though, as the King 
had shown himself determined not to lose the services of 
his brilliant captain, it was necessary for the Treasurer 
to give his jealousy a guarded form. He complained to 
Dumbarton (then commanding the forces in Scotland) 
that Claverhouse had misused some of his tenants, 
though in what manner is not clear. There is a letter 
from Claverhouse expressing in respectful terms his 



1 3 8 Cla verho use 

regret at Queensberry's annoyance, which he declares to 
have been founded on misapprehension of the facts. 

"I am convinced (he writes) your Grace is ill-informed ; 
for, after you have read what I wrote to you two days ago 
on that subject, I daresay I may refer myself to your own 
censure. That I had no desire to make great search there, 
anybody may judge. I came not from Ayr till after eleven 
in the forenoon, and went to Balagen with forty heritors 
again night. The Sanquar is just in the road ; and I 
used these men I met accidentally on the road better than 
ever I used any in these circumstances. And I may safely 
say that, as I shall answer to God, if they had been living 
on my ground I could not have forborne drawing my sword 
and knocking them down. However, I am glad I have 
received my Lord Dumbarton's orders anent your Grace's 
tenants, which I shall most punctually obey ; though, I 
may say, they were safe as any in Scotland before." l 

The previous letter her;e referred to has been lost ; 
but it is probable that the complaint originated in 
Claverhouse's summons to these heritors, or small pro- 
prietors, to take arms in the King's service, as they 
were bound to do. Men will mostly follow their 
master's lead. The Treasurer's tenants knew well, we 
may be sure, how little love their master bore for the 
imperious soldier, and were no doubt somewhat saucy 
in their remonstrances; and sauciness Claverhouse 
would not brook from any man alive, whatever his 
quality. 

But Queensberry and his crew had to nurse their 
grudge in secret. Much as the knowledge may have 
chafed them, they knew well that Claverhouse was the 

1 Claverhouse to Queensberry, June 16th, 1685. 



Chapter VIII 139 

one man on whom they could depend for wise counsel 
and prompt action in emergency. A few weeks before 
this matter of the tenants he had received an urgent 
despatch from Edinburgh, signed by " his affectionate 
friends and servants " of the Council, authorising him 
to take what steps he thought best for disposing the 
troops. Argyle was on the sea, and the Campbells 
were mustering fast to their chiefs call. Measures had 
already been taken in the northern shires. Athole had 
been appointed Lord-Lieutenant of Argyleshire, and 
held Inverary with a large force of his Highlanders. 
The Gordons, under their new-made Duke, were guard- 
ing the sea-board of Invernessshire. Glasgow was occu- 
pied by a strong body of militia. Ships of war watched 
the Firth of Clyde. To keep the Western Lowlands 
and the Border quiet was Claverhouse's charge. It 
is unnecessary to remind my readers what followed. 
Within little more than a month from his landing in 
Scotland Argyle stood upon the scaffold in Edinburgh ; 
and a fortnight later Monmouth closed his short un- 
happy life on Tower Hill. 

In this same despatch Claverhouse was told that the 
King had raised him to be a brigadier of both horse 
and foot, that James Douglas had received the same 
promotion, and that thelatter's commission bore priority 
of date. He wisely took no notice of this slight, — for, 
comparing the weight of his services to the Government 
with the services of Douglas, a slight it undoubtedly 
was, and was meant to be. He knew that it did not 
come from the King, and he was much too prudent and 
too proud to let the others see that he was annoyed by 
a stupid insult he was powerless to resent. But there 



1 40 Cla verho use 

exists a letter from Secretary Murray to Queensberry 
which makes the business very clear. It is worth 
quoting as significant of the petty intrigues in which 
men of rank and position were not then ashamed to 
indulge. 

" The King ordered two commissions to be drawn, for 
your brother and Claverhouse to be brigadiers. We were 
ordered to see how such commissions had been [drawn T\ 
here, and in Earl Middleton's office we found the extract of 
one granted to Lord Churchill, another to Colonel Worden, 
the one for horse, the other for foot. So Lord Melfort told 
me the King had ordered him to draw one for your brother 
for the foot and Claverhouse for the horse. I told him that 
could not be ; for by that means Claverhouse would com- 
mand your brother. To be short, we were very hot on the 
matter. He said he knew no reason why Colonel Douglas 
should have the precedency, unless that he was your brother. 
I told him that was enough, but that there was a greater, 
and that was, that he was an officer of more experience and 
conduct, and that was the King's design of appointing 
brigadiers at this time. He said Claverhouse had served 
the King longer in Scotland. I told him that was yet wider 
from the purpose, for there were in the army that had 
served many years longer than Claverhouse, and of higher 
quality, and without disparagement to any, gallant in their 
personal courage. By this time I flung from him, and went 
straight to the King and represented the case. He fol- 
lowed, and came to us. But the King changed his mind 
and ordered him to draw the commissions both for horse 
and foot, and your brother's two days' date before the other ; 
by which his command is clear before the other. I saw the 
commissions signed this afternoon, and they are sent here- 
with by Lord Charles Murray. Now, I beseech Your 
Grace, say nothing of this to any ; nay, not now to your 



Chapter VIII 1 4 1 

brother. For Lord Melfort said to Sir Andrew Forrester, 
that he was sure there would be a new storm on him. I 
could not, nor is [it] fit this should have been kept from you ; 
but you will find it best for a while to know or take little 
notice, for it gives him but ground of talking, and serves 
no other end." l 

But these jealous fellows were not to have it all 
their own way. In the autumn of the same year Claver- 
house was summoned to London with Balcarres to be 
heard on a complaint he had in his turn to make against 
Queensberry. Early in the spring he had been per- 
emptorily ordered to discharge a bond he had given to 
the Treasury for fines due from delinquents in Galloway. 
He answered that his brother (then Deputy- Sheriff of 
that shire) was collecting the fines, and requested more 
time for payment. On being told that he might take 
five or six days, he replied that, considering the diffi- 
culty of collection and the distances to be travelled, they 
might as well give him none. " Then," answered Queens- 
berry, " you shall have none." 2 Claverhouse had many 
times applied for leave to be heard in his own defence ; 
but Murray had hitherto persuaded the King to answer 
that no audience could be granted to him until he had 
made his peace with the Treasurer and been restored to 
his seat at the Council. But the name of Queensberry 
was not now the power it had been at Whitehall. It is 
difficult to believe that he was much more concerned 
with religion than Lauderdale ; but he was, at any rate 

1 Napier, iii. 464 : this Murray was Alexander Stuart, Earl of 
Murray, descendant and heir of the famous Eegent. He declared 
himself a convert to the Church of Kome at the same time as Perth 
and Melfort. 

2 Napier, iii. 435 : quoted from Fountainhall. 



1 42 Cla verhouse 

by profession, a staunch Protestant, and there were 
those among his colleagues ready to take every advan- 
tage of this passport to James's disfavour. It was 
determined to hear what Olaverhouse had to say for 
himself. He was summoned to London, graciously 
received by the King, and pleaded his cause so effectually 
that the Treasurer was ordered to refund the money. 

Olaverhouse and Balcarres returned to Edinburgh 
on December 24th. With them came the Chancellor 
Perth and his brother, John Drummond, the new Lord 
Melfort. The brothers were in James's best books, for 
they had recently professed themselves converted to the 
Roman Catholic faith by the convincing logic of the 
papers found in Charles's strong-box arid made public 
by the King. 1 But they were not so popular in Edin- 
burgh. The new year opened with something very like 
a No Popery riot. Lady Perth was insulted on her way 
home from mass by a baker's boy. The Privy Council 
ordered the lad to be whipped through the Canongate, 
but the 'prentices rose to the rescue of their comrade. 
The guard was called out : there was firing, and some 
citizens fell. There was disaffection, too, among the 
troops : one soldier was arrested for refusing to fire on 
a Protestant : another was shot for threatening to run 
his sword through a Papist. In the Council Perth 
moved that one Canaires, minister at Selkirk, should be 
arraigned for preaching against the Pope ; but he found 
no man on his side except Olaverhouse, who, though Pro- 
testant to the backbone, had no mind to see his King 
insulted under the cloak of religion. James's famous 
scheme of Universal Toleration was soon found to be 
1 Burnet, ii. 341. 



Chapter VIII 143 

what every sensible man had foreseen — a scheme of 
toleration for his own religion and of persecution for 
all others. 

But the history of the next three years, with its 
wretched tale of violence and folly, of oppressions that 
broke the hearts of the loyal, and concessions that only 
moved the scorn of the mutinous, may be read else- 
where. The last appearance of Claverhouse on the 
scene is at the Council in February, 1686, where he 
supports Perth in his motion to bring the indiscreet 
minister to book, till he appears again in his proper 
character as a soldier commanding the cavalry of the 
Scottish contingent on its march south to join the army 
of England. We know, however, that in that same 
year, 1686, he was promoted to be Major-General, and 
in March, 1688, was made Provost of Dundee. We 
must now pass to the memorable autumn of the latter 
year. 

In September, 1688, a despatch in James's own 
hand was sent down to the Council at Edinburgh an- 
nouncing the imminent invasion of England by the 
Prince of Orange. Perth, still Chancellor and a Papist, 
was told to do nothing without consulting Balcarres 
and Tarbat. Their advice was unquestionably the best 
that could have been given for James and the worst for 
England; for, had it been followed, instead of the 
short Highland campaign of the following year, that; 
began at Killiecrankie and ended at Dunkeld, there 
would in all probability have been civil war through- 
out the kingdom. They advised that the regular troops 
under Douglas and Claverhouse, now between three 
and four thousand strong, should be augmented by 



1 44 Cla verho use 

a force of twelve thousand raised from the Highland 
clans and the militia, and that these troops should be 
distributed along the Border and through the north- 
ern shires of England. Preparations were at once 
begun to this effect. The chiefs of the great clans 
were ordered to hold their claymores ready : the castles 
of Edinburgh and Stirling were munitioned for war : 
the militia was called out in every county, and volun- 
teers enrolled in every town. In the midst of the 
bustle arrived a second despatch from James, ordering 
the regular troops to march at once for England to join 
the army under Feversham. This foolish order was 
Melfort's doing, urged by his secretary, Stewart of 
Goodtrees, who, after having been concerned in all the 
most notorious plots of the last twenty years, and actually 
condemned to death for his share in Argyle's rebellion, 
had now blossomed into an Under-Secretary of State. 
Eemonstrance was useless.- " The order," wrote Bal- 
carres, " was positive and short — advised by Mr. James 
Stewart at a supper, and wrote upon the back of a 
plate, and an express immediately despatched therewith." 
And so " with a sorrowful heart," he goes on to 
remind the exiled King, " they began their march — 
three thousand effective young men — vigorous, well- 
disciplined and clothed, and, to a man, hearty in your 
cause, and willing, out of principle as well as duty, to 
hazard their lives for the support of the Government 
as then established both in Church and State." ! The 

1 The memoirs of Colin Lindsay, third Earl of Balcarres, were 
presented to James at Saint Germains in 1690. The edition I have 
used is that printed for the Bannatyne Club in 1841 by the late 
Lord Crawford, from a transcript made by James, the son of the 



Chapter VIII 145 

loyalty of some of these fine fellows was, however, des- 
tined soon to suffer a change in the disturbing atmo- 
sphere of England. 

The full strength of the Scottish contingent was 
three thousand seven hundred and sixty-three men. 
Douglas was in command, with Claverhouse under him 
at the head of the cavalry, which mustered eight hun- 
dred and forty-one sabres, including his own regiment, 
Livingstone's troop of Life Guards, and Dunmore's 
dragoons, a regiment which, as the Scots Greys, has 
since earned a reputation second to none in the British 
Army. The infantry was made up of Douglas's own 
regiment of Foot Guards, now the Scots Guards : 
Buchan's regiment, now the Twenty-first of the Line, 
or, to give them their latest title, the Royal Scots Fusi- 
liers ; and Wauchope's regiment : — two thousand nine 
hundred and twenty-two men in all. 1 They left Scot- 
writer, and great-grandfather of Lord Crawford. The editions 
previously printed in 173 5 and 1754, and in Walter Scott's edition 
of Soiners's Tracts published in 1814, contain many passages not to 
be found in the first transcript, and declared, by its latest editor, to 
reflect the opinions and sentiments of the copyist rather than those 
of the original author. 

1 Cannon's "Historical Records of the British Army : " Napier, iii. 
475-76. Claverhouse's own regiment was disbanded early in the 
following year. The first colonel of the Greys, then officially 
known as "The Royal Regiment of Scots Dragoons," was Dalziel, 
Lord Charles Murray (afterwards created Earl of Dunmore) serving 
as captain under him. Dalziel died in 1685, and was succeeded 
in the command by Dunmore. Napier gives the muster-roll of 
Claverhouse's regiment for May, 1685. It consisted of six troops, 
of which the colonel, as the custom then was, commanded the first 
in person, the other captains being Lords Drumlanrig, Ross, Airlie, 
Balcarres, and William Douglas; hardly the men, perhaps, to sanction 
the pranks of Macaulay's Apollyons and Beelzebubs. Napier also 

L 



1 46 Cla verhouse 

land in the beginning of October, the foot marching by 
way of Chester, the horse by way of York, on London. 
Early in November they reached the capital, where they 
lay for a few days : Claverhouse, with his own regiment 
and the Horse Guards, being quartered in Westminster, 
the dragoons in Southwark, and Douglas, with his Foot 
Guards, in Holborn. On the tenth of the month they 
marched for Salisbury, where the King's army was now 
gathered. During the march Claverhouse received the 
last and most signal proof of favour James was to give 
him. On November 12th he had been created Viscount 
of Dundee. 

In the royal camp all was confusion and doubt. 
William was at Axminster, and not a single enemy was 
in his rear. Many of the great English houses had 
already joined him, and each hour brought news to 
Salisbury of fresh disaffection in every part of the king- 
dom. James was at first anxious to fight, but Fever- 
sham warned him that, though the men were steady, few 
of his officers could be depended on. Before leaving 
London the King had called his chief captains together 
and offered passes to all who were desirous to leave him 
for the Prince of Orange, " to spare them," he said, 
"the shame of deserting their lawful sovereign." All 
were profuse in professions of loyalty, and among 

quotes an amusing passage in a letter from Athole to Queensberry, 
which, as he says, may recall memories of a certain historic injunc- 
tion of later times, " to take care of Dowb." Athole had been 
superseded in his command of the Life Guards by Montrose, and 
when the latter fell sick, made interest with Queensberry to be 
reinstated. " As you will oblige me," the passage runs, " pray 
remember Geordie Murray [who held a commission in the regiment], 
but not in wrath." 



Chapter VIII 147 

them were Churchill, Grafton, and the butcher Kirke. 
Churchill, we know, continued these professions up to 
the eleventh hour. On the evening of the 24th James 
held a council of war, in which Churchill's voice was 
loudest for battle. That night he left Salisbury for 
Axminster, and Grafton went with him. Some of the 
Scottish officers stood firm, but not all. Dumbarton 
offered to lead his regiment alone against the enemy. 
Dundee urged James to do one of three things : to 
fight the Prince, to demand from him in person his 
business in England, or to retire into Scotland with his 
faithful troops. But the King still hesitated, and while 
he hesitated the moment passed. Kirke, who com- 
manded the advance -guard at Warminster, flatly refused 
to obey the orders sent him from Salisbury, and a 
rumour spread that he had gone over to William with 
all his men. The King broke up the camp and began 
his retreat to London ; and before he had got farther on 
his way than Andover, Ormonde and Prince George had 
joined the deserters, taking with them young Drum- 
lanrig. Douglas did not himself go over; but one of 
his battalions did, without any attempt on his part to 
stop them. He had sounded Dundee on the expediency 
of making terms for themselves with William ; but as 
he had done so under an oath of secrecy, Dundee felt 
himself bound in honour to keep silence, and we may 
suppose made it a part of the bargain that Douglas 
should stay where he was. 

James left no orders behind him, and after his re- 
treat the movements of his army are somewhat con- 
fused. Dundee marched his cavalry to Reading, where 
he was joined by Dumbarton. Thence they were ordered 

l 2 



148 Cla verhouse 

to Uxbridge to consult with Feversham on the chances 
of a battle. But hardly had they got there when the latter 
received orders to disband the army, and heard at the 
same time of the King's flight from London. The 
Scottish troops clamoured for Dundee to lead them 
back to their country. He marched them to Watford, 
and while there, it is said, received a letter from "William, 
who had now advanced to Hungerford, bidding him stay 
where he was and none should harm him. 1 According 
to Balcarres, Dundee made at once for London on the 
news of the King's flight, and was still there on his 
return. But the fact is that few of these contemporary 
writers descend to dates, and it is almost impossible 
therefore to track any one man's -movements through 
those troubled days.' It is, however, certain that a meet- 
ing of the Scottish Council was summoned in London 
by Hamilton at some period between James's first flight 
and his return, and that Dundee attended it. That 
Hamilton meditated declaring for William is certain, 
and that he would have taken all his colleagues with 
him, except Dundee and Balcarres, is probable ; but the 
King's sudden return to Whitehall postponed matters 
for a time. 

James reached London from Rochester on the after- 
noon of Sunday, December 16th. William was then at 
Windsor, and James expressed a wish to meet him in 
London, offering St. James's Palace for his quarters. 
William sent an answer that he could not come to 
London while there were any troops there not under his 
command. On the 17th a council was held at Windsor, 
with Halifax in the chair, to determine what should be 

1 Creichton. 



Cha p ter VIII 1 49 

done with James. William himself would not be pre- 
sent. It was decided that James must, at any rate, 
leave London, and the decision was brought to him that 
night as he lay asleep in bed. No resistance was 
possible, had any been intended. The Dutch had occu- 
pied Chelsea and Kensington early in the afternoon ; 
and when Halifax, Shrewsbury, and Delamere arrived 
with their message from Windsor, three battalions of 
foot, with some troops of horse, were bivouacked in 
St. James's Park, and Dutch sentinels were posted at 
Whitehall. 

Early on the morning of the 17th Dundee and 
Balcarres had waited on the King. None were with 
him but some gentlemen of his bedchamber. Balcarres 
told him that he had orders from his colleagues to 
promise that, if the King would give the word, an 
army of twenty thousand men should be ready within 
four-and-twenty hours. " My lord," replied James, 
" I know you to be my friend, sincere and honourable : 
the men who sent you are not so, and I expect nothing 
from them." It was a fine morning, and he said he 
should like a walk. Balcarres and Dundee attended 
him into the Mall. When they had got there the 
King asked them, how came they still to be with him 
when all the world had forsaken him for the Prince 
of Orange ? Both answered that their fidelity to so 
good a master would be ever the same, and that they 
had nothing to do with the Prince of Orange. a Will 
you two," then asked the King, " say you have still 
attachment to me?" " Sir," was the answer, "we 
do." " Will you give me your hands upon it as men 
of honour ? " They did so. " Well," said the King 



&> 



150 Cla verhouse 

" I see you are the men I always took you to be ; 
you shall know all my intentions. I can no longer re- 
main here bat as a cypher, or to be a prisoner to the 
Prince of Orange*, and you know there is but a small 
distance between the prisons and the graves of kings. 
Therefore I go for France immediately ; when there you 
shall have my instructions — you, Lord Balcarres, shall 
have a commission to manage my civil affairs, and you, 
Lord Dundee, to command my troops in Scotland." 

They then parted. On the next morning, the morn- 
ing of the 18th, in dark and rainy weather, the royal 
barge was ready at Whitehall stairs, under an escort of 
boats filled with Dutch soldiers. Halifax, with his 
colleagues from Windsor, attended the King to the 
water-side. Dumbarton, Arran, and a few others fol- 
lowed him down the river, and stayed by him during 
the few painful days he lingered at Eochester. At 
dawn of the 23rd James left England for ever. 

Dundee stayed on in London. His regiment had 
been disbanded, and the rest of the Scottish forces, after 
a spirited but futile attempt to take matters into their 
own hands, had settled quietly down under their new 
colonels, some of the most doubtful ones being sent out 
of harm's way to Holland. Dunmore had thrown up 
his command, and his dragoons were now in the charge 
of Sir Thomas Livingstone. Schomberg was placed, to 
their intense disgust, at the head of Dumbarton's in- 
fantry, once James's favourite regiment. Some of his 
old troopers, however, still kept by the captain whom 
they had known as Claverhouse. 

Hamilton and his party pressed William to exempt 
from the general amnesty certain members of the Scot- 



Chapter VIII 151 

tish Council whom they named as particular and unscru- 
pulous instruments of James's tyranny, and unsafe to 
be let go at large. But the Prince with his usual good 
sense refused to drive any man into opposition : the 
past even of the most guilty should, he said, be forgotten 
till he was forced to remember it. Against Dundee and 
Balcarres he had been especially warned. He remem- 
bered both well: Balcarres had married a lady of his 
family, and Dundee had fought by his side. He asked 
them both to enter his service. They refused, and 
Balcarres, plainly avowing the commission entrusted to 
him by James, asked if, in such circumstances, he could 
honourably take service with another. " I cannot say 
that you can," was the answer, " but take care that you 
fall not within the law, for otherwise 1 shall be forced 
against my will to let the law overtake you." Dundee 
was told that if he would live quietly at home, no alle- 
giance should be exacted from him and no harm done 
to him. He answered that he would live quietly, if he 
were not forced to live otherwise. Early in February 
the two friends left London for Edinburgh. 1 

1 It is not clear that Dundee had an audience of William. 
Macaulay says in one place that he was not ungraciously received 
at Saint James's, and in another that he employed the mediations of 
Burnet. Both statements are of course compatible with each other. 
The latter rests on Burnet's own authority ; but for the former I can 
find none in any of the writers from whom Macaulay has taken his 
narrative of these days. Dalrymple's words are, " Dundee refused 
without ceremony," which may mean anything. It is, I think, not 
improbable that William employed Burnet to sound Dundee, and that 
the good bishop, among whose qualities tact was not pre-eminent, 
managing the matter clumsily, met with an unceremonious refusal 
for his pains. The point, however, is of no importance. It is clear 
enough that William would have been glad to see both men in his 



1 5 2 Cla verhousb 

service, and that they both declined to enter it. As Macaulay has 
called Dundee's conduct disingenuous, apparently on Burnet's autho- 
rity, it may be well to give the bishop's own words. " He [Dundee] 
had employed me to carry messages from him to the King, to know 
what security he might expect if he should go and live in Scotland 
without owning his government. The King said, if he would live 
peaceably, and at home, he would protect him : to this he answered, 
that, unless he was forced to it, he would live quietly." " History 
of My Own Time," iii. 29. Macaulay's paraphrase is as follows. 
"Dundee seems to have been less ingenuous. He employed the 
mediation of Burnet, opened a negotiation with Saint James's, 
declared himself willing to acquiesce in the new order of things, 
obtained from William a promise of protection, and promised in 
return to live peaceably. Such credit was given to his professions, 
that he was suffered to travel down to Scotland under the escort of 
a troop of cavalry." " History of England," iv. 281. I do not think 
the text quite bears out the commentary ; and indeed elsewhere in 
the chapter Macaulay seems inclined to allow more credit to these 
professions. The " escort " under which Dundee was " suffered to 
travel " consisted of his own troopers, who had followed him from 
Watford to London, and stayed with him to the end. 



153 



CHAPTER IX. 

All eyes were now turned to Scotland. England had 
practically accepted William, and although the terms 
of acceptance were still in some quarters kept open 
to question, there was no longer fear that the final 
answer would have to be given by the sword. In 
Scotland the case was different. Many of the great 
nobles and other dignitaries had indeed professed them- 
selves in favour of William, but political morality, a 
custom nowhere in those days very rigidly observed, 
may be said to have been honoured by Scottish states- 
men almost wholly in the breach. No man trusted his 
neighbour, and his neighbour was perfectly aware of 
the fact. It was impossible to say what an hour might 
not bring forth ; and in this flux of things no man 
could guarantee that the Whigs of to-day would not 
be the Jacobites of to-morrow. Hamilton was the re- 
cognised leader of the Whigs, Athole of the Jacobites. 
Both were great and powerful noblemen. The influ- 
ence of Hamilton was supreme in the Western Low- 
lands : only Mac Callum More could muster to his 
standard a larger gathering than the lord of Blair, and 
the glory of Mac Callum More was now in eclipse. 
Yet Hamilton had been one of James' Privy Councillors, 



154 Cla vrrho use 

and had not declared for William till the Dutch guards 
were at Whitehall. His son Arran and his brother 
Dumbarton were both on the other side : Arran had 
accompanied James to Rochester, and Dumbarton had 
refused to hold his commission under the Prince of 
Orange. Athole had more than once coquetted with 
the Whigs, and his present Jacobitism was shrewdly 
suspected to be due to the coolness with which his 
advances had been received : his son Lord Murray, who 
had married a daughter of Hamilton, had declared for 
William. These great noblemen had indeed the satis- 
faction of feeling that, however the die might fall, 
their titles and estates were at least secured. But the 
wisdom of their family arrangements did not increase 
their reputation with their parties. The Duke of 
Gordon held the castle of Edinburgh for James; and, 
though the Duke was a weak creature, his position was 
strong. The bulk of the common people were un- 
doubtedly Whigs : the bishops, and the clergy gene- 
rally, were, if not exactly Jacobites, undoubtedly Tories. 
There were religious troubles of course to swell the 
political ones. When the news of James's flight reached 
Edinburgh, Perth had been imprudently induced to dis- 
band the militia, and the Covenanters had been quick 
to take advantage of the imprudence. The Episcopal 
clergymen were rabbled throughout all the western 
shires. Their houses were sacked, and themselves and 
their families insulted and sometimes beaten: the 
churches were locked, and the keys carried off in triumph 
by the pious zealots. In Glasgow the Cathedral was 
attacked, and the congregation pelted through the 
streets. In Edinburgh Holyrood Palace was carried 



Chapter IX 155 

by storm : the Catholic chapel, which James had built 
and adorned with great splendour, was gutted, and the 
printing-press, employed to publish tracts in favour of 
the Catholic religion, was broken up. Perth fled for his 
life, but was overtaken at sea, carried back and lodged 
in Stirling Castle, followed by the threats and curses of 
the mob. Such was the temper of the Scottish nation 
when the Convention of Estates, summoned by William, 
met at Edinburgh on March 14th, 1689. 

The Act depriving the Presbyterians of the franchise 
had been annulled, and the elections had gone strongly 
in favour of the Whigs. Hamilton had been chosen 
President by a majority of forty votes over Athole, 
whereupon twenty ardent Jacobites went straightway 
over to the other side. The next thing to be done was 
to get rid of Gordon. It was impossible, they said, for 
a free Parliament to deliberate under the shadow of ' 
hostile guns. Two of his friends, the Earls of Lothian 
and Tweeddale, were accordingly sent to the Duke with 
a message from the Convention, offering him favourable 
terms of surrender. He asked a night for consideration ; 
but during the night he was also visited by Dundee 
and Balcarres. They showed him the commissions en- 
trusted to them by James, and told him that if things 
did not go better for their party they had resolved to 
exercise their power of summoning a new Convention to 
Stirling. At his request Dundee also gave him a paper 
guaranteeing his action in holding the castle as most 
necessary to the cause. On the following day, when 
the earls returned, Gordon told them he had decided 
not to surrender his trust except upon terms too ex- 
travagant to be seriously considered. He was accord- 



1 5 6 Cla verho use 

ingly summoned in form by the heralds : guards were 
posted round the castle, and all communications between 
it and the town declared treasonable. The Duke re- 
plied by a largess of money to the heralds to drink King 
James's health, telling them that they should in com- 
mon decency have turned the King's coats they wore 
on their backs before they came to declare the King's 
subjects traitors. 

Meanwhile a messenger had arrived with a sealed 
despatch for the Estates from James. • It seemed strange 
both to Dundee and Balcarres that the message had 
not been to them, or at least accompanied by a letter 
informing them of its purport ; but they had no suspicion 
of its contents, and willingly agreed to the terms on 
which the Whigs consented to hear it read. These 
terms were, that the Convention was a legal and free 
meeting, and would accept no order to dissolve until it 
had secured the liberty and religion of Scotland. The 
vote was passed, and the letter was read, to the con- 
sternation of the Jacobites and the delight of the Whigs. 
Of all the foolish acts committed by James the despatch 
of this letter was, in the circumstances, the most foolish. 
Not a word did it contain of any intention to respect the 
religion or the liberty of men whom it still professed to 
address as subjects. Pardon was promised to all who 
should return to their allegiance within a fortnight: 
to all others punishment was threatened in this world, 
and damnation in the next. Nothing was wanting to 
heighten the imprudence. The letter was in the hand- 
writing of Melfort, who was equally odious to both 
parties ; and it had been preceded by one from William 
expressed in terms as wise and moderate as the others 



Chapter IX 157 

were headstrong and foolish. But the feeling of the 

more temperate Jacobites will best be shown in the 

account Balcarres himself gave to his master of the 

effect produced by this fatal epistle. " When the mes- 
senger was announced," he wrote, 

" His coming was joyful to us, expecting a letter from 
your Majesty to the Convention, in terms suitable to the 
bad situation of your affairs in England, and as had been 
advised by your friends before we left London ; and so 
assured were they of their advices being followed, that they 
had encouraged all the loyal party, and engaged many to 
come to the Convention, in hopes such full satisfaction 
would be given in matters of religion and liberty, that even 
most of those who had declared against you would return 
to their duty. But, as in place of such a letter as was 
expected, or letters to particular persons, as was advised, 
came a letter from your Majesty to the Convention, with- 
out any copy to show your friends, in terms absolutely 
different from those we had agreed upon, and sent to your 
Majesty by Mr. Lindsay from London. Upon other occa- 
sions such a letter might have passed, if there had been 
power to have backed it, or force to make good its recep- 
tion ; but after the Parliament of England had refused to 
read a letter from your Majesty because of the Earl of 
Melfort's countersigning it [and considering] that England 
had made the Prince of Orange their King, and that it was 
known you had none to sustain your cause but those who 
advised letters of another strain, it was a fault of your 
advisers hardly to be pardoned. . . . Crane was brought 
in and the letter read, with the same order and respect 
observed upon such occasions to our Kings • but no sooner 
was it twice read and known to be Earl Melfort's hand and 
style, but the house was in a tumult — your enemies in joy 
and your friends in confusion. Glad were your enemies to 



158 Cla verhousr 

find nothing so much as promised of what we had asserted 
should be done for their satisfaction, [they] having much 
feared many of their party would have forsaken them if 
your Majesty's letter had been written in the terms we 
advised from London. Mr. Crane could give no account 
why the advice of your friends was not followed, but Mr. 
Lindsay made no secret of it after he came back from 
St. Germain's, but informed us that, after he had delivered 
to [the] Earl of Melfort the letters and advices of your 
friends at London to your Majesty, his Lordship kept him 
retired, and he was not suffered to attend you — fearing 
that what he had written to your Majesty relating to his 
Lordship might spoil his project of going to Ireland with 
you. We had observed at London the great aversion men 
of all professions had at his being employed, and we knew 
he was in no better esteem in his own country, which made 
us entreat your Majesty to leave him in France, and some, 
upon his own account, advised his not coming over, know- 
ing the danger he might be in ; but his Lordship either 
suppressed our letters or gave our advices another turn 
than was intended, by which all our hopes of succeeding in 
the Convention vanished, nor was ever seen so great an 
alteration as was observed at the next meeting after your 
letter was read, which made all your friends resolve to 
leave Edinburgh and to call a Convention of Estates at 
Stirling, as your Majesty had given the Archbishop of 
St. Andrews, the Yiscount of Dundee, and myself the 
power to do this by a warrant sent by Mr. Brown from 
Ireland." 

Dundee was anxious to be gone. He saw that the 
game was up in the Convention, and there were other 
reasons. For many days past troops of strange, fierce- 
looking men, carrying arms but half-concealed beneath 
their plaids, had been flocking into Edinburgh. These 



Chapter IX 159 

were the men of the hill-sides and moorlands of the 
West, the wild Western Whigs, who feared and hated 
the name of Claverhouse more than anything on earth. 
Their leader was William Oleland, a survivor from the 
fields of Drumclog and Bothwell, a brave and able 
young man, of good education and humane above his 
fellows, but who, it was well known, was burning to 
have vengeance upon Dundee. Some of these men had 
been heard to mutter that the tables were turned now, 
and a bloodly Clavers " should play the persecutor no 
more. Word was brought to Dundee that a plot was 
on foot to assassinate him and Sir George Mackenzie, 
the most hated of all James's lawyers. Whether the 
rumour were true or not, it was at least too probable 
to be disregarded. Dundee laid the matter before 
Hamilton, offered to produce his witnesses, and de- 
manded that these armed strangers be ordered to leave 
the town. Hamilton (who was, in fact, responsible for 
their presence) answered that the Convention had more 
important matters to think of, that the city could not 
be left defenceless to Gordon and his rebellious garrison, 
and, it is said, twitted Dundee with imaginary fears un- 
becoming a brave man. 

A meeting of the Jacobites was held. It was de- 
cided to call a fresh Convention at Stirling. Mar, who 
held the castle there, professed himself staunch, and 
Athole promised to have a force of his Highlanders in 
readiness. This was on Saturday, March 16th : it was 
determined to leave Edinburgh on the following Monday. 

When Monday came Athole proposed to wait an- 
other day. As his co-operation was of the greatest 
importance, his proposal was accepted. But Dundee 



1 60 Cla verho use 

would wait no longer. In vain Balcarres told him that 
his haste would ruin all their plans. He answered 
that he would take no action without the agreement of 
the rest, but in Edinburgh he would stay no longer. 
He had made an appointment for that day with some 
friends outside the walls, and he could not break it. His 
troopers had been in readiness since an early hour, and 
Dundee returning to his lodgings gave signal to mount. 
The streets were thronged with scowling faces, but 
they shrank to right and left as those stern riders came 
clattering down the Canongate. A friend called from 
the crowd to know whither they went. Dundee raised 
his hat from his head and answered : " Wherever the 
spirit of Montrose shall direct me." When clear of the 
walls he led his men to the left up the Leith Wynd and 
along the bank of the North Loch, the ground now oc- 
cupied by the busy and handsome thoroughfare known 
as Prince's Street. The road to Stirling winds beneath 
the Castle rock, and as the cavalcade came on, their 
leader saw the Duke on the ramparts, making signals 
to him for an interview. Dundee dismounted, and 
scrambled up the steep face of the rock. What passed 
between them is not clearly known. Balcarres says 
Dundee told the Duke of the design for Stirling, and 
once more prayed him to stand firm. But it seems clear 
that Dundee had by that time abandoned all hopes of a 
fresh Convention, and it is doubtful whether he had any 
definite plan in his mind. Dalrymple's report of the con- 
versation seems more likely to be the true one. According 
to him Dundee pressed the Duke to come north with 
him, leaving the castle to the charge of the Lieutenant- 
Governor, Winram, a man who had made himself too 



Chapter IX 161 

odious to the people to leave room for any doubt of his 
fidelity to James. But these bold ventures were not 
to the Duke's taste : his courage was of that sort which 
shows best behind stone walls ; and his answer was in- 
geniously framed to conceal his timidity under a show 
of discipline. " A soldier/' he said, " cannot in honour 
quit the post that is assigned to him." 

Meanwhile the city was in an uproar. A number of 
people had gathered round the foot of the rock to stare 
at the strange sight. The watchers from the city mag- 
nified this idle crowd into a hostile force. A messenger 
came in haste to the Convention with the news that 
Dundee was at the gates with an army, and that the 
Duke of Gordon was preparing to fire on the town. 

Hamilton, who, while affairs were still in the 
balance, had behaved with unexpected moderation, now 
gave loose to his temper. The time had come, he said, 
for all good friends of order to see to their safety when 
enemies to their liberties and religion were taking arms. 
There was danger within as well as without. The 
traitors must be kept close ; but true men had nothing 
to fear, for thousands were ready to start up in their 
defence at the stamp of his foot. He then ordered 
the room to be locked, and the keys to be laid on the 
table. The drums beat to arms : the town-guard, and 
such force of militia as was still in the city, fell in ; 
while from garrets and cellars the Westland men came 
thronging into the streets, with weapons in their hands, 
and in their faces fury and fear of their terrible enemy. 
After a time, as the news came that Dundee had 
ridden off northward and that all seemed quiet in the 
castle, the tumult subsided. The doors of the Parlia- 

M 



1 6 2 Cla verhouse 

ment House were opened, and the members came out. 
Hamilton and his party were greeted with loud cheers : 
threats and execrations no less loud assailed the few and 
downcast Jacobites. From that memorable day the 
friends of William had nothing more to fear in the 
capital of Scotland. For a while, indeed, some show 
of opposition was still maintained, faintly stimulated by 
the arrival of Queensberry from London. But he had 
come too late. His power was no longer what it had 
been ; nor were his professions of loyalty regarded by 
men like Balcarres as above all suspicion. For Queens- 
berry had been wise with the wisdom of Hamilton and 
Athole. The great House of Douglas was prudently 
divided against itself, and come what might it should 
not fall. And Athole now, after with great show 
of bravery urging Gordon to fire on the town, had 
grown somewhat less than lukewarm, while Mar, the 
Governor of Stirling Castle, put an end for ever to any 
thoughts of a fresh Convention in that city by boldly 
declaring for William. The hopes and the hearts of the 
Jacobites had gone northward with Dundee; and in 
truth there was not at this moment a brave company of 
either. 

Dundee did not draw rein in Stirling. He galloped 
through the town, across the bridge, and on by Dunblane, 
where he stayed the night, to his own home at Dudhope, 
where his lady was then waiting her confinement. The 
only man of his own quality who had ridden with him 
from Edinburgh was George Livingstone, Lord Lin- 
lithgow's son, whose troop of Life Guards had been taken 
from him in the general re-arrangement of regiments 
that had followed the fiasco of Salisbury ; and he had 



Chapter IX 163 

left his companion on the road to make for Lord Strath- 
more's house at Glamis. For a week of unwonted quiet, 
the last he was to know on earth, Dundee rested at Dud- 
hope. Then his enemies found him. On the morning of 
the 26th Hamilton's messengers appeared before his 
gates, summoning him to lay down his arms and return 
to his duty at the Convention, on pain of being proclaimed 
traitor and outlaw. Dundee replied by a letter which, 
as it has been styled both disrespectful and disingenuous, 
it is worth while to print in full. 

" Duclhope, March 27th, 1689. 

" May it please your Grace : — The coming of an herald 
and trumpeter to summon a man to lay down arms that is 
living in peace at home, seems to me a very extraordinary 
thing, and, I suppose, will do so to all that hear of it. While 
I attended the Convention at Edinburgh I complained often 
of many people being in arms without authority, which was 
notoriously known to be true ; even the wild hill- men ; and 
no summons to lay down arms under the pain of treason being 
given them, I thought it unsafe for me to remain longer 
among them. And because a few of my friends did me the 
favour to convey me out of the reach of these murderers, 
and that my Lord Livingstone and several other officers took 
occasion to come away at the same time, this must be called 
being in arms. We did not exceed the number allowed by 
the Meeting of Estates. My Lord Livingstone and I might 
have had each of us ten ; and four or five officers that were 
in company might have had a certain number allowed them ; 
which being, it will be found we exceeded not. I am sure 
it is far short of the number my Lord Lorn was seen to 
march with. And though I had gone away with some more 
than ordinary, who can blame me when designs of murdering 
me was made appear % Besides, it is known to everybody 

m 2 



1 64 Cla ver house 

that, before we came within sixteen miles of this, my Lord 
Livingstone went off to his brother, my Lord Strathmore's, 
house ; and most of the officers and several of the company 
went to their respective homes or relations. And, if any 
of them did me the favour to come along with me, must 
that be called being in arms ? Sure, when your Grace 
represents this to the Meeting of the States, they will dis- 
charge such a groundless pursuit, and think my appearance 
before them unnecessary. Besides, though it were necessary 
for me to go and attend the meeting, I cannot come with 
freedom and safety, because I am informed there are men- 
of-war and foreign troops in the passage ; and till I know 
what they are and what are their orders, the Meeting cannot 
blame me for not coming. Then, my Lord, seeing the 
summons has proceeded on a groundless story, I hope the 
Meeting of States will think it unreasonable I should leave 
my wife in the condition she is in. If there be anybody 
that, notwithstanding of all that is said, thinks I ought to 
appear, I beg the favour of a delay till my wife is brought 
to bed ; and in the meantime I will either give security or 
parole not to disturb the peace. Seeing this pursuit is so 
groundless, and so reasonable things offered, and the Meet- 
ing composed of prudent men and men of honour, and your 
Grace presiding in it, I have no reason to fear further 
trouble. 

" I am, may it please your Grace, your most humble 
servant, " Dundee. 

" I beg your Grace will cause this read to the Meeting, 
because it is all the defence I have made. I sent another 
to your Grace from Dunblane with the reasons of my leaving 
Edinburgh. I know not if it be come to your hands." 

The letter was read to the Convention on the follow- 
ing day, and on Saturday, March 30th, John Graham, 



Chapter IX 165 

Viscount of Dundee, was proclaimed traitor with all the 
usual ceremonies. Thrice was his name called within 
the Parliament House, and thrice outside its doors, and 
thrice with sound of trumpet at the market-cross of the 
good town of Edinburgh. 

About the same time happened a still more untoward 
thing. James was now in Ireland. He had learned 
how matters had gone in Scotland, and conceived that 
the moment for action had come. A commission was 
accordingly despatched to Dundee, constituting him 
Lieutenant-General and Commander-in-Chief in Scot- 
land, together with a letter in James's own hand, in- 
forming him that five thousand foot and three hundred 
horse would presently be at his disposal. There were 
letters also from Melfort both to Dundee and Balcarres. 
Either by the folly or the knavery of the messenger 
the papers fell into the hands of Hamilton, who read 
them to the Convention. As usual, Melfort's letters 
were in the most foolish and violent language. " You 
will ask no doubt," he wrote to Dundee, " how we shall 
be able to pay our armies; but can you ask such a 
question while our enemies, the rebels, have estates to 
be forfeited ? We will begin with the great and end 
with the small ones." To Balcarres he wrote in the 
same strain. " The estates of the rebels will recom- 
pense us. You know there were several lords whom 
we marked out, when you and I were together, who 
deserved no better fate. When we get the power, 
we will make these men hewers of wood and drawers of 
water." No man was mentioned by name, so that each 
man was at liberty to take these threats for himself. 
" You hear," cried Hamilton, "you hear, my lords 



1 66 Cla verho use 

and gentlemen, our sentence pronounced. We must 
take our choice, to die, or to defend ourselves." There 
was a terrible uproar, the new Whig recruits being 
among the loudest in their exposition of the dangers to 
which their love for their religion and their country 
was likely to expose them. Leven was ordered with 
two hundred of his new regiment to arrest both Dundee 
and Balcarres. 1 The latter was taken easily enough, 
and clapped into the Tolbooth. But Dundee got wind 
of his danger, and was off before the soldiers could reach 
Dudhope. He went northward still, to Glen Ogilvy, his 
wife's jointure-house, in the parish of Glamis, not far 
from the old historic castle of Macbeth ; and thither 
Leven did not think it prudent to pursue him. 

1 During the first alarm raised by Dundee's departure the Con- 
vention had passed an order to raise and arm a regiment of eight 
hundred men, and had given the command to Leven. It is said that 
the men were found within two hours. See "An Account of the 
Proceedings of the Estates in Scotland," London, 1689. 



1 67 



CHAPTER X. 

Dundee had ridden out of Edinburgh with no clear 
plan of action before him. Balcarres afterwards de- 
clared that his friend had no intention of making for 
the Highlands till he learned that warrants were out for 
his apprehension. Yet it is probable that the idea of 
a Highland campaign had already begun to take shape 
in Dundee's mind before Mackay's advance forced him 
over the Grampians. His orders were, in the event 
of the Estates declaring for William, to keep quiet till 
the arrival of a regular force from Ireland should en- 
able him to take the field with some chance of success. 
And, indeed, he had at that time no alternative. It 
was clear to him that the game was lost in the Low- 
lands, but it was not yet clear to him that anything 
was to be gained in the Highlands. The example of 
his famous kinsman might indeed serve to fire both 
his imagination and his ambition ; but it could hardly 
serve to make him hopeful of succeeding with the 
weapons which had failed Montrose. A few thou- 
sand claymores would no doubt prove a useful supple- 
ment to the small body of troops James might be able 
to spare from Ireland ; but even a mind so ardent and 
sanguine as Dundee's might well have shrank from 
facing the chances of war with no other resources than 



1 68 Clave&house 

a handful of troopers and a rabble of half-armed, half- 
naked, and wholly undisciplined savages. And in truth 
experience had shown that these fierce and jealous 
spirits were little less dangerous as allies than as 
enemies. Every clan had its hereditary feud, and no 
one could say that on the day of battle the claymores 
might not be drawn against each other instead of against 
the common foe. Branches even of the same stock did 
not conceive themselves inevitably bound by the tie of 
blood, though it was a claim never forgotten when it 
was convenient to make or allow it. Sometimes a few 
of the smaller clans would make common cause against 
the oppressions of a more powerful, or the cattle of a 
wealthier neighbour ; but it was rarely that friendship 
went beyond the conditions of an armed neutrality. 
Though the feudal system had long prevailed in many 
parts of the Highlands, it had never superseded the older 
patriarchal system. The chief of the clan might pay 
homage to a great lord like Argyle or Athole ; but in 
the clan he was king, and his word was law. More- 
over, brave as the Highlanders undoubtedly were, they 
were not a warlike race. They would rise to the 
signal of the fiery cross, without questioning the cause; 
and they would on occasion fight for their own hand, 
for revenge or plunder. But the long service of a 
regular war was little to their taste. Of military science 
and military discipline they knew nothing. To win 
the battle with the rush of the first onset, and when 
the battle was won to make off to their homes w^ith all 
the plunder they could lay hands on, — this was their 
notion of warfare, and it was a notion which the chiefs 
were too ignorant or too prudent to interfere with. 



Chapter X 169 

What chance could there be of inducing such spirits as 
these to combine in one great confederacy, and to under- 
take a long and desperate struggle for the sake of a 
king of whom the most part had never heard, and of 
a cause which they could not understand ? 

But Dundee had learned something at Dunblane 
which had given him fresh views. During the few 
hours he had passed there he had talked much with a 
Highland gentleman, Alexander Drummond of Bahaldy, 
son-in-law to Sir Ewan Cameron of Lochiel, the great 
chief of the clan Cameron. Drummond told him that 
Lochiel had been busy all the winter among his neigh- 
bours, that they were now ripe for war, and were only 
waiting a leader and some succours of regular troops and 
ammunition ; that James had been communicated with , 
and had approved their plan in a letter written with 
his own hand to Lochiel ; and that an early day had 
been appointed for a rendezvous of the clans in Lochaber, 
the head-quarters of the Camerons. 

It is now generally acknowledged that on this occa- 
sion, however it may have been in the next century, 
the action of the Highland chiefs was not inspired by 
devotion to the House of Stuart. Lochiel himself may 
indeed have been moved by some personal consideration 
for the exiled King. He had fought bravely under 
Montrose for Charles the First, and under Middleton 
for Charles the Second. From the latter King he 
had received more than one letter full of those flat- 
tering assurances Charles knew so well how to make. 
By James he had been graciously welcomed at White- 
hall, and had received the honour of knighthood from 
the royal hand. He was brave, wise, generous, and 



1 70 Cla verhousr 

faithful, and, even in a less rude society than that in 
which his lot was cast, his manners would have been 
called agreeable and his education certainly not con- 
temptible. But even Lochiel's loyalty was not suffered 
to run counter to his interests. In Lochaber the name 
of James was as nothing compared with the name of 
Evan Dhu, and the law of the King of England gave 
place to the law of the great Chief of the Camerons. As 
for the rest, the dispute between Whigs and Jacobites 
was no more to them than the dispute between the 
Guelphs and Ghibellines had been to their ancestors. 
They cared not the value of a single sheep whether 
James or William sat on the throne of Great Britain, so 
long as neither interfered with them. No later than 
the previous year the authority of James had been 
insulted and his soldiers beaten by one of these in- 
dependent lordlings — Colin Macdonald of Keppoch, 
familiarly known as Coll of the Cows, for his skill in 
tracking his neighbour's cattle over the wildest moun- 
tains to the most secret coverts. 1 

But for what loyalty to the House of Stuart was 
powerless to effect a motive was found in the hatred 
to the House of Argyle. Nearly all the chiefs of the 
Western Highlands were vassals to Mac Callum More, 
the head of the great clan of Campbell. The numerous 
branches of the Macdonalds, who had once been lords 
of the Hebrides and all the mountain districts of Ar- 
gyleshire and Invernessshire, the Camerons, the Mac- 

1 The passage in which Macaulay has explained the condition 
and sentiment of the Highlanders at this time, will be familiar to 
every reader. What may be less familiar is a pamphlet entitled 
" Kemarks on Colonel Stewart's Sketches of the Highlanders," pub- 
lished at Edinburgh in 1823, the year after Stewart's book. 



Chapter X iy\ 

naghtens, the Macleans, the Stuarts of Appin, all these 
paid tribute (it would be probably more correct to say 
owed tribute) to the Marquis of Argyle, and all were 
ready to welcome any chance of freedom from that odious 
bondage. The early loyalty of Lochiel had probably 
been as much inspired by the fact that he was fighting 
against an Argyle as for a Stuart, as it is possible had 
been the loyalty of Montrose himself. In 1685 he 
had cheerfully summoned his clan to repel the invasion 
of another chief of that hated House ; and now the Re- 
volution had brought back from exile yet another to 
exercise the old tyranny. This was enough to make 
the Eevolution a hateful thing in the eyes of Lochiel 
and his neighbours. But it was also believed that 
James had conceived the idea of buying up from the 
great Highland nobles their feudal rights over the clans, 
and had only been prevented from carrying his idea 
into effect by the Revolution. In the minds of these 
Western chiefs, then, William was the oppressor and 
James the deliverer. Throughout the winter they had 
watched eagerly for news from the South. At length 
they learned that the Estates had declared for William ; 
that their prime enemy was restored to favour and 
power ; and that Dundee, whose exploits against the 
party of which for three generations an Argyle had been 
the acknowledged head were well known to them, was 
an outlaw and a fugitive. In him they at once recog- 
nised the leader for whom they waited. Drummond 
was accordingly sent to invite him to their councils, and 
to promise that a sufficient escort should be ready at the 
proper time to convey him to the appointed meeting- 
place. 



172 Cla verho use 

Meanwhile it had become necessary for Dundee to 
look to his own safety. A more dangerous enemy than 
Leven was now in the field against him. As soon as 
William had learned the decision of the Estates he 
had despatched a body of troops into Scotland under 
General Mackay. Hugh Mackay, of Scourie, was him- 
self of a Highland stock. Like Dundee, he had learned 
the art of war first in France, and afterwards in the 
Low Countries, where he had risen to the command 
of the Scots Brigade, as those regiments were called 
which upwards of a century before the new Protestant 
enthusiasm of England had raised to support Holland 
against the tyranny of Spain. He was a good man, a 
brave if not a dashing soldier, a prudent tactician, and 
well skilled in all the machinery of war. 

Mackay. at first contented himself with sending 
Livingstone and his dragoons after Dundee, while he 
turned his attention to Gordon, who was still maintain- 
ing some show of resistance in the castle. But Living- 
stone was too late. He found the nest warm, but the 
bird had flown. Dundee had gone northwards over 
the Grampians into the Gordons' country, where the Earl 
of Dunfermline, the Duke's brother-in-law, at once 
joined him with a most welcome addition to his little 
band of troopers. Mackay foresaw that the Highlands 
were to be the real scene of operations, and that 
no danger need be apprehended from the vapouring 
Gordon. He sent word, therefore, to Livingstone to 
await him in Dundee, and marched himself for that 
place with some two hundred of his own brigade and 
one hundred and twenty of Lord Colchester's dragoons. 1 
1 Now the Third Dragoon Guards. 



Chapter X 173 

It is as difficult for the reader to follow Dundee 
through these April days as Mackay found it. In the 
sounding hexameters of the " Grameis," his movements 
are indeed described with more labour than lucidity ; 
but at this early stage of the campaign it is not necessary 
to track him over every mountain and river, and by every 
town and castle. 1 It will be enough to say that in an 
incredibly short space of time he beat up for recruits 
the greater part of the counties of Aberdeen, Inverness, 
and Perth, while the bewildered Mackay, whose training 
and troops were alike unfitted to this sort of campaign- 
ing, toiled after him in vain. He also found time for a 
flying visit to Dudhope, where his wife had been safely 
delivered of a son. He can have stayed with her but a 
day at most ; and when he left her, he was to see her 
face no more. 

From Dudhope Dundee crossed the Grampians again 
for Inverness. Here it had been arranged for him to 
meet Keppoch and the promised escort of Highlanders. 
And here, accordingly, he found them ; but he also 
found a state of things which gave him a lively foretaste 
of the character and conduct of his new allies. 

Between the clan of Macdonald and the clan of 
Mackintosh there had existed for many centuries a 
deadly feud, the exact origin of which had long been 
lost in the mists of fable. On the other hand, a good 
understanding had long existed between the Mackin- 
toshes and the town of Inverness. Though the town in 
those days consisted only of some five hundred mean 
buildings surrounded by a crazy wall, the busy little 

1 In Napier's third volume will be found many translations in 
prose from this poem, from which I have taken a few touches. 



i 74 Cla verho use 

colony of artisans which inhabited it, and the occasional 
visit of a trading vessel to its port, had invested it among 
the Highlanders with the reputation of vast wealth. Here 
was an opportunity for gratifying his love of revenge 
and his love of plunder which Keppoch was not the 
man to lose. He advanced through the territory of the 
Mackintoshes, harrying and burning as he marched, up 
to the walls of Inverness. For two days he lay before 
its crazy gates threatening fire and sword, while the 
burghers mustered to arms within, and the ministers 
exhorted them from the market-place. Such was the 
state of affairs Dundee found when he and his troopers 
rode into the Highland camp on the first day of May. 

Keppoch tried to excuse himself. The town, he 
said, owed him money, and he sought only to recover his 
own. On the other hand, the magistrates said that he 
had forced them to promise him four thousand marks. 
Dundee answered that Keppoch had no warrant from 
him to be in arms, much less to plunder. But it was 
not yet safe for him with his handful of horse to use 
such brave language to the chief at the head of his eight 
hundred claymores. He therefore temporised. By his 
advice the magistrates agreed to pay two thousand dollars : 
half of this sum was raised on the spot with some diffi- 
culty : for the other half Dundee gave his bond to 
Keppoch. He also promised the magistrates that, when 
James was restored to his throne, the money should be 
refunded to them. Dundee had saved the town, but for 
the present he had lost his allies. Keppoch and his 
thieves, laden with the silver of Inverness and the cattle 
of the Mackintoshes, retired in dudgeon to their moun- 
tains. 



Chapter X 175 

But Dundee was destined to achieve something 
before he joined the muster at Lochaber. After he 
had parted from Keppoch he turned westward down the 
valley of the Ness, by the noble castle of Glengarry, 
which Cumberland destroyed after Culloden, by Kil- 
cummin, where Fort Augustus now stands, memorable 
in his eyes as the spot whence Montrose had led the 
clans to break the power of the Campbells at Inver- 
lochy, and so southwards again through the forest of 
Badenoch to the Tay. As he was painfully toiling 
through this vast and rugged recruiting-ground word 
was brought to him that a regiment of cavalry was 
being raised in Perth under the auspices of the Laird 
of Blair, a rich and powerful gentleman who had married 
into Hamilton's family. He determined on a bold 
stroke. He was sorely in need of powder, provisions, 
money, and especially of fresh mounts for his troopers, 
the long rapid marches, cold weather, and scanty forage 
having reduced his horses to a very sorry plight. In 
Perth he might lay hands on all these, and possibly on 
a few recruits into the bargain. He was in Blair when 
the messengers found him on May 10th. With his 
handful of sabres he swooped down on Dunkeld, which 
he reached just in time to relieve a tax-collector of the 
dues he had been successfully raising for William. At 
Dunkeld he rested his men till nightfall, and then rode 
straight for Perth. At two o'clock in the morning he 
entered the city, surprised Blair and his lieutenant, 
Pollock, in their beds, collected forty horses, a store of 
arms and powder, some provisions, and some of the public 
money, and was off again with his booty and his pri- 
soners before the startled citizens had fairly realised 



1 76 Cla verhouse 

the weakness of their invaders. He recrossed the Tay, 
and halted at Scone to refresh himself and his men 
at the charges of Lord Stormont, an involuntary act of 
hospitality on the latter's part for which he had some 
trouble to excuse himself in Edinburgh. 1 

While in the wilds of Badenoch Dundee had received 
another message which had interested him much. In 
the dragoons now under Livingstone's command were 
several of Dunmore's old officers still well affected to 
James. Chief among these were William Livingstone, 2 
a relation of the colonel, and that Captain Creichton of 
whom mention has been already made. While lying in 
garrison at Dundee Creichton found means to get secretly 
into Dudhope, and to assure Lady Dundee that he and 
many of his comrades were only waiting an opportunity 
to join her husband. She sent off word of this to the 
wanderer, who managed to convey an assurance to 
Creichton of his plans, and of the strength of the rein- 
forcements he expected from Ireland. On their landing, 
he added, he should expect the dragoons to join him. 

1 Napier (iii. 552, note) quotes the following minute in the records 
of the Estates : — " 13th May, 1689 : Amissive letter from the Viscount 
of Stormont to the President was read, bearing that the Viscount 
Dundee had forced his dinner from him at his house of Scone, on 
Saturday last, and therefore desiring that his intercommuning with 
him, being involuntary, might be excused." He was cited, however 
as a delinquent, together with his father-in-law, Scott of Scotstarvet 
and his uncle, Sir John Murray of Drumcairn (a Lord of Session), 
who had also to assist at the involuntary banquet. Throughout his 
short campaign Dundee was careful never to take a penny from the 
pocket of any private person. He considered, he said, that he was 
justified in appropriating the King's money to the King's use. 

2 Creichton calls him Lord Kilsyth, but he had not then succeeded 
to the title. He is the same who afterwards married Lady Dundee. 



Chapter X 177 

This note was received by Creichton from the hands 
of a ragged Highlander two days after he had marched 
with a part of his regiment to join Mackay at Inverness. 
Could he have waited a little longer he would have 
seen his correspondent in person. On the afternoon of 
Monday, May 13th, the inhabitants of the town which 
had given this terrible Claverhouse his title saw to their 
amazement the crest of the high ground to the north 
glittering with steel-clad riders. At the same time Lord 
Rollo, who was camped outside the walls with some new 
levies of horse, came flying through the gates with the 
news that Dundee was upon them. The drums beat to 
arms : the gates were closed ; and barricades hastily 
thrown up in the principal streets, while the citizens 
crowded on the walls to stare at the audacious foe. 

It is possible that Dundee., who was ignorant of 
Creichton's departure, thought that his appearance might 
bring the dragoons over to his side at once. But the 
officer who was then in command kept his troops quiet ; 
and after manoeuvring his men up to the very walls of 
the town Dundee drew off as night fell to Glen Ogilvy. 1 
It is impossible that even he can have conceived the 
idea of a serious attack on the place ; and the story of 
his actually entering and plundering the town is certainly 

1 It is doubtful who this officer was. Mackay, in his memoirs, 
says it was William Livingstone, calling him either a coward or a 
traitor for not showing fight. If Livingstone it was, he may not 
have felt sure enough of the men who were left with him to join 
Dundee in so open a manner, and to fight was not his cue. But 
another account puts one Captain Balfour in command. The whole 
account of the affair is even more confused than are most of Dundee's 
exploits. But that he did make a demonstration of some sort against 
the town is proved by the Minutes of the Estates. 

N 



178 Cla ver house 

apocryphal, though his men very probably made free 
with Kollo's camp. 

Meanwhile Mackay at Inverness was busy in his 
turn among the clans. Lochiel had only sent the cross 
round among those chiefs who, like him, hated the 
Campbells. Dundee had gone further afield, but had 
not been successful. The gratitude of the Mackintoshes 
was not enough to do more than keep them neutral, 
— which was perhaps fortunate, for had they joined 
the muster at Lochaber they would inevitably have 
been at blows with the Macdonalds before a day had 
passed. The Macphersons also kept aloof, and the 
Macleods. Mackay's invitations were received with the 
same indifference. Some of the Grants, whose chief had 
suffered under the late Government for his allegiance to 
Argyle, joined him ; and from the northern shires of 
Ross and Sutherland a few Mackays came to fight for 
a captain of their own blood. But the two sources 
on which the Government had mainly relied for help 
were both found wanting. The Campbells had suffered 
so severely from the invasion of Athole in the previous 
year that Argyle found it impossible to rally them in 
time to be of service in the present campaign. The 
Covenanters, though hailing the rule of William as a 
deliverance from the rule of James, were persuaded by 
their ministers that it was a sin to take military service, 
even against the abhorred Dundee, with men whose 
orthodoxy was, to say the least, not above suspicion. 
Seaforth, Lovat, Breadalbane, and the other great lords of 
the east and south Highlands, would not bid their vassals 
arm for either side. Athole had indeed once more pro- 
fessed allegiance to the new order, but while affairs were 



Chapter X \yg 

still in an uncertain state he would not commit him- 
self to any decisive action. It was clear to Mackaythat 
the name of William was no name to charm with in 
Scotland, and that the most he could hope to effect was 
to prevent a general rising of the clans for James. The 
sagacious Tarbat had already pointed out to him how 
this might be done. Five thousand pounds, he said, 
would be ample to satisfy all Argyle's claims upon the 
chiefs who owed him vassalage. If these claims were 
satisfied, and the clans assured that under William they 
would secure the freedom they had hoped for from James, 
though it might not be possible to persuade them to 
fight for the former, not a single claymore would follow 
Dundee to the field for the latter. William was now 
induced to try the experiment. But by a blunder so 
extraordinary as to suggest treachery somewhere, the 
agent entrusted to manage the affair was himself a Camp- 
bell. The chiefs naturally refused to listen to such a 
messenger, and treated all subsequent overtures with 
a contemptuous refusal or a still more contemptuous 
silence. It is not certain that any money was actually 
expended ; but if so, it is very certain that not a penny 
of it went to any Cameron or Macdonald. 

Dundee had now reached Lochaber, where he was 
cordially welcomed by Lochiel, and lodged in a building 
close to the chief's own house, a rude structure of pine- 
wood, but in his men's eyes a magnificent palace. The 
clans had proved true to their tryst. Every Cameron 
who could wield a broadsword was there. From the 
wild peaks of Corryarrick and Glen Garry, from the 
dark passes of Glencoe and the storm-beaten islands of 
the western seas, the men of Macdonald came trooping 

N 2 



1 80 Cla verho USE 

in. Sir John of Duart brought a strong gathering of 
Macleans from Mull, promising that more of the name 
were on the road. Young Stewart of Appin had led 
his little band from the shores of Loch Finnhe. The 
Macnaghtens were there from the very heart of the great 
enemy's country, where the hated towers of Inverary 
cast their shadow on the waters of Loch Fyne. Eraser 
of Foyers and Grant of Urquhart, disregarding the 
action of their respective chiefs, each brought a small 
following of his own vassals. 

It is impossible to calculate the exact force which, 
at any time during his short campaign, Dundee had at 
his disposal. But the number of claymores which this 
first muster brought to Lochaber cannot have been less 
than two thousand. Besides these, there was his little 
body of cavalry, some fifty sabres in all, partly com- 
posed of his own troopers, and partly of Dunfermline's 
followers. That nobleman and Lord Dunkeld were of 
the party. Dundee's own brother, too, seems to have 
been with him, and a member of the Duntroon branch 
of the Grahams. Certain gentlemen from the Lowlands 
had also joined him : Sir Alexander James of Coxtone, 
Sir Archibald Kennedy of Cullean, Hallyburton of 
Pitcur, Murray of Abercairny, and others. 

Still there was no sign from Ireland, and Dundee 
hesitated to take the field against Mackay with such 
capricious and irregular allies. He did not doubt the 
courage of his Highlanders, but he had grave doubts of 
their obedience. That they would fight bravely when 
it was their cue to fight, he knew well ; but he was 
much less confident that they would take their cue 
from him. He had at first conceived the idea of putting 



Chapter X 181 

them through some course of military training, but 
Lochiel urged so many and such weighty reasons against 
it that he gave up the plan. " There is not time," said 
the sagacious old chief, " for our men to learn your method 
of warfare. They would merely unlearn their own. 
This is one which must seem strange to your notions of 
war ; but it is one which they thoroughly understand, 
and which makes them, when led by such a general as 
you, a match for the most practised veterans. Think 
of what they did under Montrose, and be sure that 
they will show the same courage and win as great 
victories under you." It, therefore, became more than 
ever necessary that the promised succours should be 
no longer delayed. Some regular troops, however few, 
would serve both as a rallying-point and as an ex- 
ample to the Highlanders. And, indeed, it had been 
only on the promise of such support that Lochiel had 
induced the chiefs to arm. Dundee sent letter after 
letter to Ireland full of cheerful accounts of the good 
promise of affairs, but urging the instant despatch of 
troops, together with a store of money, ammunition, 
and all the other necessaries for an army about to 
take the field, of which there was, in truth, a most 
plentiful lack in Lochaber. There were not above 
fifty pounds of powder in the camp ; and though the 
Highland fashion was to trust more to the cold steel 
than the bullet, powder was a necessity of war that 
could not well be altogether dispensed with. Dundee 
also urged upon Melfort the good effect James' own 
presence would have upon his Scottish allies. If that 
could not be managed, he said, at least let him send 
the Duke of Berwick. There was no petty jealousy in 



I 8 2 Cla verho use 

Dundee's character. He would have cheerfully put 
himself under the command of any man if by so doing 
he were likely to further the cause he had at heart. 
But no answer came to these appeals. In one of the 
last letters Dundee wrote, he reminds Melfort that for 
three months he had received not a single line from 
him or from James. 

Meanwhile, his tact, his good temper, courtesy, 
and liberality had won the hearts of his new allies. 
With the money he had brought with him from the 
Lowlands, and the supplies his wife and some of his 
friends were able occasionally to send him, he contrived 
to maintain an establishment that was at least superior 
to anything which most of his new friends were accus- 
tomed to. Every day he entertained some of the chiefs 
at his table. He made himself acquainted with the 
faces and names of the principal tacksmen of each clan, 
and mastered a few words of Gaelic to enable him to 
address and return salutations. In the field he lived no 
better than the meanest of his men, sharing their coarse 
food and hard lodging, and often marching on foot by 
their side over the roughest country and in the wildest 
weather. His powers of endurance extorted the wonder 
even of those sturdy mountaineers who had been inured 
from childhood to the extremes of hunger and fatigue. 
More than a century after his death it was still told with 
admiration how once, after chasing Mackay from dawn 
to sunset of a summer's day over the ruggedest part of 
the Athole country, he had spent the night in writing, 
only resting his head occasionally on his hands to 
snatch a few moments of sleep. Among the Oamerons 
he was always spoken of as the General, and honoured 



Chapter X 183 

next to Lochiel himself. At the same time, he was 
careful to maintain his authority and to exact the 
respect due to his position. He knew well that among 
those lawless spirits he who would be obeyed must 
be feared. On one occasion he administered a public 
rebuke to the arch-thief, Keppoch, who had found 
time for another raid on the Mackintoshes. In the 
presence of all the chiefs Dundee told the offender that 
he would sooner serve in the ranks of a disciplined 
regiment than command men who were no better than 
common robbers ; that he would countenance such out- 
rages no more, nor any longer keep in his army those 
who disgraced the King's cause by their private quarrels. 
Keppoch, who would infallibly have struck his dirk into 
any other man who had used such language to him, 
attempted some lame excuses, muttered an apology, 
and ended by promising for the future neither he nor 
any of his men would stir a foot save at the General's 
command. There is no stronger proof of Dundee's 
genius and capacity for affairs than the singular influ- 
ence he was able in a few short weeks to gain over men 
who could not speak his language and who hated his 
race. When on the dark day of Culloden the wavering 
clans looked in vain to their Prince, an old chief, who 
had heard his father talk of Ian Dhu Cean (Black 
John, the Warrior), exclaimed in a passion of rage and 
grief, " Oh, for an hour of Dundee ! " 

But loth as he was to engage Mackay with the 
Highlanders alone, Dundee knew that he could not hope 
to keep them long together inactive. Provisions were 
running short. If they could not harry James's enemies, 
they would make free with their own. Dundee was 



1 84 Cla verhouse 

particularly anxious to give no cause of offence to those 
clans whose neutrality he hoped to be able to turn into 
friendship. Already a serious prospect of disunion had 
threatened the little army. A party of the Camerons 
had made a raid on the Grants, in which a Macdonald 
of Glengarry had been killed. The man had become 
affiliated to the Grants, and had refused to join the 
muster of his own tribe. He had therefore forfeited all 
the right of clanship. Yet Glengarry, as much perhaps 
from policy as from any overpowering sense of kinship, 
demanded vengeance ; and it needed all the combined 
tact of Dundee and Lochiel to prevent him from drawing 
out his men to attack the Camerons. When, therefore, 
Dundee learned that Mackay had left Inverness to join 
some reinforcements from Edinburgh, he determined 
on action. 

The troops Mackay expected to find in Badenoch 
were six hundred men of his own Scots Brigade under 
Colonel Eamsay. Ruthven Castle on the Spey was the 
place of meeting, and May 26th the time. But Ramsay 
had been detained in Edinburgh by an alarm of an in- 
vasion from France, and it was not till the 27th that 
he entered the Athole country. Here he learned that 
Dundee was on the march to meet him. The popula- 
tion did not seem friendly : he could get no news of 
Mackay ; and on the whole he judged it prudent to 
retire to Perth. That he might do this with more 
speed he blew up his ammunition train, to prevent it 
falling into Dundee's hands. Mackay, who, as soon as 
he learned that Ramsay was fairly on the road, had 
marched with all speed from Inverness, was too late to 
save Ruthven Castle. It had been surrendered by the 



Chapter X 185 

governor, Captain Forbes, on the 29th, and reduced to 
a heap of ruins. 

This was the beginning of a series of marches and 
counter-marches on the part of the two generals, which 
lasted far into June, without any advantage on either 
side. On one occasion a party of the Macleans of 
Lochbuy, marching to join Dundee in Badenoch, came 
to blows with some of Livingstone's dragoons; and 
there were other skirmishes, of no material result, at 
none of which was either general present in person. 
More than once Dundee was in striking distance of 
Mackay ; but he never found himself in a position to 
engage with sufficient assurance of victory. A defeat 
he dared not risk; and even victory, unless complete 
enough to need no second blow, had its dangers. An 
army which considered the safe storage of his booty as 
the first duty of a successful soldier could not safely be 
trusted to make good the result of a doubtful battle. 
And in fact he found his forces each day diminishing as 
food became more scarce in those barren wilds, or as 
some lucky raid necessitated a departure for home with 
the prize. At length, wisely determining to sanction 
what he could not prevent, and feeling that even his iron 
frame and dauntless spirit were in need of rest, Dundee 
dismissed the clans for the present, on their giving 
a promise to join him again when he should require 
them. Keeping only some two hundred of the Macleans 
with him, he returned to his old quarters, on the 
pressing invitation of Lochiel, who swore to him that 
while there was a cow in Lochaber neither he nor his 
men should want. Mackay did not attempt to follow 
him. At such a game of hide-and-seek he saw that 



1 86 Cla verhouse 

his men were no match for the active light-marching 
Highlanders. He accordingly put garrisons into cer- 
tain fortified parts of Invernessshire and Perthshire, 
sent the rest into quarters, and himself repaired to 
Edinburgh. 

From the middle of June to the end of July the 
war therefore languished. But Dundee was not idle. 
The arts of diplomacy were as familiar to him as the 
arts of war. He still maintained an active correspon- 
dence with the neutral chiefs, and kept Melfort well 
informed of all he had done and proposed to do for his 
master's service. I shall conclude this chapter with an 
extract from the last despatch he sent to Ireland. It 
is long ; but it gives so graphic an account of his pro- 
ceedings since the muster at Lochaber, of the state of 
the country, and the relative positions and prospects of 
the two parties, that its length may be excused. It also 
shows, what one would not perhaps have otherwise sur- 
mised, that the writer had some little touch of humour. 
The letter is dated from Moy, in Lochaber, June 27th, 
1689. I omit the first part, which seems to refer to 
some complaints Melfort had made of his having been 
ill-spoken of by Dundee. 

" My Lord, I have given the King, in general, account of 
things here ; but to you I will be more particular. As to 
myself, I have sent you it at large. You may by it under- 
stand a little of the state of the country. 1 You will see 
there, when I had a sure advantage I endeavoured to profit 
on it ; but on the other hand, shunned to hazard anything 
for fear of a ruffle. For the least of that would have dis- 

1 None of his previous despatches from the Highlands are in 
existence, 



Chapter X 187 

couraged all. I thought if I could gain time, and keep up 
a figure of a party without loss, it was my best till we got 
assistance, which the enemy got from England every day. 
I have told the King I had neither commission, money, nor 
ammunition. My brother-in-law and my wife found ways 
to get credit. 1 For my own nobody durst pay to a traitor. 
I was extremely surprised when I saw Mr. Drummond, the 
advocate, in Highland habit, come up to Lochaber to me, 
and gave account that the Queen had sent 2,000Z. sterling to 
London, to be paid to me for the King's service, and that two 
more was a-coming. I did not know the Queen had known 
anything of our affairs. I received a very obliging letter from 
her with Mr. Crane, but I know no way to make a return. 
However, when the money comes, I shall keep count of it 
and employ it right. But I am feared it will be hard to 
bring it from Edinburgh. 

" When we came first out I had but fifty pounds of 
powder. More I could not get. All the great towns and 
seaports were in rebellion, and had seized the powder, and 
would sell none. But I had one advantage — the High- 
landers will not fire above once, and then take to the broad- 
sword. 

" But I wonder, above all things, that in three months 
I never heard from you, seeing by Mr. Hay I had so ear- 
nestly recommended it to you, and told of this way by 
Inverlochy as sure. If you could not have sent expresses, 
we thought you would at least have hastened the dispatch 
of those we sent. McSwyne has now been away near two 
months, and we know not if the coast be clear or not. 
However, I have ventured to advise Mr. Hay to return 
straight, and not go further in the country. He came not 
here until the 22nd, and they surrendered on the 13th. 2 It 

1 Robert Young of Auldbar had married Dundee's youngest 
sister, Anne. 

2 The Duke of Gordon surrendered the Castle of Edinburgh on 



1 8 8 Cla verho use 

was not Mr. Hay's fault he was so long of coming, for there 
has been two English men-of-war and the Glasgow frigates 
amongst the islands till of late. For the rest of the letters I 
undertook to get them delivered. Most of the persons to 
whom they are directed are either put in bond, or in prisons, 
or gone out of the kingdom. The Advocate is gone to 
England, a very honest man, firm beyond belief, 1 and 
Athole is gone too, who did not know what to do. Earl 
Hume, who is very frank, is taken prisoner to Edinburgh, 
but will be let out on security. Earl Breadalbane keeps 
close in a strong house he has, and pretends the gout. Earl 
Errol stays at home. So does Aberdeen. Earl Marischal 
is at Edinburgh, but does not meddle. Earl Lauderdale is 
right, and at home. The Bishops ? I know not where they 
are ! They are now the Kirk invisible. I will be forced to 
open the letter, and send copies attested to them, and keep 
the original till I can find out our Primate. The poor 
ministers are sorely oppressed over all. They generally 
stand right. Duke Queenberry was present at the Cross 
when their new mock king was proclaimed, and, I hear, voted 
for him, though not for the throne vacant. His brother, the 
Lieutenant- General, some say is made an earl. He is come 
down to Edinburgh, and is gone up again. He is the old 
man, and has abused [deceived] me strangely, Eor he swore 
to me to make amends. Tarbat is a great villain. Besides 
what he has done at Edinburgh, he has endeavoured to 
seduce Locheil by offers of money which is under his hand. 
He is now gone up to secure his faction (which is melting), 
the two Dalrymples and others, against Skelmorly, Polwart, 
Cardross, Ross, and others, now joined with that worthy 
prince, Duke Hamilton. Marquis Douglas is now a great 
knave, as well as beast, as is Glencairn, Morton, and Eglin- 

June 13th, after a resistance which towards the end assumed the 
character almost of a burlesque, 
1 Sir George Mackenzie. 



Chapter X 189 

ton. And even Cassilis is gone astray, misled by Gibby. 1 
Panmure keeps right and at home. So does Strathmore, 
Southesk, and Kinnaird. Old Air lie is at Edinburgh under 
caution. So is Balcarres and Dunmore. Stormont is de- 
clared fugitive for not appearing. All these will break out, 
and many more, when the King lands, or any from him. 
Most of the gentry on this side the Forth, and many on the 
other, will do so too. But they suffer mightily in the mean- 
time, and will be forced to submit if there be not relief sent 
very soon. The Duke of Gordon, they say, wanted nothing 
for holding out but hopes of relief. Earl of Dunfermline 
stays constantly with me, and so does Dunkeld, Pitcur, and 
many other gentlemen, who really deserve well, for they 
suffer great hardships. When the troops land, there must 
be blank commissions sent for horse and foot for them, and 
others that will join. There must be a Commission of Jus- 
ticiary, to judge all but landed men. For there should be 
examples made of some who cannot be judged by a council 
of war. They take our people, and hang them up, by their 
new sheriffs, when they find them straggling. 2 

" My Lord, I have given my opinion to the King con- 
cerning the landing. I would first have a good party sent 
over to Inverlochy ; about five or six thousand, as you have 
convenience of boats ; of which as many horse as con- 
veniently can. About six or eight hundred would do well, 
but rather more. For had I had horse, for all that yet 
appeared I would not have feared them. Inverlochy is 
safe landing, far from the enemy, and one may choose, 
from thence, to go to Moray by Inverness, or to Angus by 
Athole, or to Perth by Glencoe, and all tolerable ways. 

1 Gilbert Burnet, the bishop. His wife was a sister of Lord 
Cassilis. 

2 On Dundee's retreat from Badenoch, some of his men who had 
straggled for plunder had been caught and hung by Gordon of 
Edenglassie, Sheriff of Banff. 



1 90 Cla verhousb 

The only ill is the passage is long by sea, and inconvenient 
because of the island ; but in this season that is not to be 
feared. So soon as the boats return, let them ferry over 
as many more foot as they think fit to the point of Kintyre, 
which will soon be done ; and then the King has all the boats 
for his own landing. I should march towards Kintyre, and 
meet, at the neck of Tarbet, the foot, and so march to raise 
the country, and then towards the passes of Forth to meet 
the King, where I doubt not but we would be numerous. 

" I have done all I can to make them believe the King 
will land altogether in the west, on purpose to draw their 
troops from the north, that we may easier raise the country 
if the landing be here. I have said so, and written it to 
everybody ; and particularly I sent some proclamations to 
my Lady Errol, and wrote to her to that purpose, which 
was intercepted and carried to Edinburgh, and my Lady 
taken prisoner. I believe it has taken the effect I de- 
signed ; for the forces are marched out of Kintyre, and I 
am just now informed Major-General Mackay is gone from 
Inverness by Moray, towards Edinburgh. I know not what 
troops he has taken with him as yet ; but it is thought he 
will take the horse and dragoons (except a few) and most 
of the standing forces ; which, if he do, it will be a rare 
occasion for landing here, and for raising the country. 
Then, when they hear of that, they will draw this way, 
which will again favour the King's landing. Some think 
Ely a convenient place for landing, because you have choice 
of what side, and the enemy cannot be on both. Others 
think the nearer Galloway the better, because the rebels 
will have far to march before they can trouble you. Others 
think Kircudbright or thereabouts, because of that sea for 
ships, and that it is near England. Nobody expects any 
landing here now, because it is thought you will alter the 
design, it having been discovered. And to friends and all 
I give out I do not expect any. 



Chapter X 191 

"Sol am extremely of opinion this would be an extreme 
proper place, unless you be so strong that you need not care 
where to land. The truth is, I do not admire their mettle. 
The landing of troops will confound them terribly. I had 
almost forgot to tell you that the Prince of Orange, as they 
say, has written to his Scotch Council, telling them he will 
not have his troops any more harassed following me through 
the hills, but orders them to draw to the West, where, he 
says, a great army is to land ; and, at the same time, gives 
them accounts that eight sail of men-of-war is coming from 
Brest, with fifteen thousand men on board. He knows not 
whether they are designed for England or Ireland. I beg 
you will send an express before, whatever you do, that I 
may know how to take my measures ; and if the express 
that comes knows nothing, I am sure it shall not be dis- 
covered for me. I have told Mr. Hay nothing of this pro- 
posal, nor no man. If there come any party this way, I beg 
you send me ammunition, and three or four thousand arms 
of different sorts — some horse, some foot. 

" I have just now received a confirmation of Mackay's 
going south, and that he takes with him all the horse and 
dragoons, and all the standing foot. By which I conclude, 
certainly, they are preparing against the landing in the 
west. I entreat to hear from you as soon as possible ; and 
am, in the old manner, most sincerely, for all Carleton can 
say, my lord, your most humble and faithful servant, 

" Dundee." 

It appears by a postscript added on the following 
day, that before Dundee's messenger left Lochaber 
letters had arrived from Melfort. They seem to have 
been again full of complaints of the hard things said 
about him, and of the undeserved dislike with which 
all classes in Scotland seemed to regard him. But of 



1 92 Cla ver house 

help there was no more than the usual vague promises, 
and glowing accounts of apocryphal successes in Ireland. 
Dundee congratulated the Secretary on their master's 
good fortune, diplomatically fenced with the question 
of unpopularity, and reiterated his appeal for succour. 

" For the number " [he wrote], " I must leave (that) to 
the conveniency you have. The only inconveniency of the 
delay is, that the honest suffer extremely in the low country 
in the time, and I dare not go down for want of horse; and, 
in part, for fear of plundering all, and so making enemies, 
having no pay. I wonder you send no ammunition, were 
it but four or five barrels. For we have not twenty 
pounds." 



193 



CHAPTEB XL 

Mack ay had now decided on a new plan of campaign. 
He would apply to the service of war a device employed 
by the Highlanders in the chase, and put in practice 
against them their own tactics of the tinchel. 1 A chain 
of fortified posts was to be established among the 
Grampians, and at various commanding points in Inver- 
nessshire. On the west a strong garrison was to be 
placed in the castle of Inverlochy, the northernmost 
point of Argyle's country overlooking the stronghold of 
the Camerons. A small fleet of armed frigates drawing 
a light draft was to cruise off the western coasts, and 
to watch those dangerous islands whence issued the 
long war-galleys of the Macdonalds and the Macleans. 
Stores and transport enough to keep a considerable 
force in the field for one month was to be collected ; 
and a skilled body of pioneers, equipped with all the 
tools necessary for road-making, was to accompany the 
column. 

1 See the sixth canto of " The Lady of the Lake." 
" We'll quell the savage mountaineer, 
As their tinchel cows the game." 
The tinchel was the name given to the circle of hunters which, 
gradually narrowing, hemmed the deer into a small space, where they 
could be easily slaughtered. 

O 



1 94 Cla verho use 

Having already sketched out this plan in a letter 
to Hamilton, Mackay was in hopes to find on his arrival 
in Edinburgh that measures had been begun to put it 
into operation. He was grievously disappointed. He 
found nothing but quarrels and intrigues in the Parlia- 
ment House and out of it. Each man was too intent 
on out-manoeuvring his neighbour in the great struggle 
for place, to spare a thought for a foe who was happily 
separated from them by a vast barrier of mountains and 
many hundreds of miles of barren moorland, deep waters, 
and dense forests. He saw that his plan for subduing 
the warriors of the Highlands must wait till the Low- 
land politicians were at leisure to listen to him ; yet he 
determined to return to his duty, and to do his best 
with such means as he could find or make for himself. 
It was possible that Argyle might now have sufficiently 
repaired his affairs to be able to render some assistance 
from the West: and there was an ally in Perthshire 
who might, if he would, prove of even more value than 
Argyle. 1 

Lord Murray, Athole's eldest son, had, unlike his 
father, made up his mind early in the Revolution and 
kept to it. But it happened that there was one now 
in possession of Blair Castle who had also chosen his 
side with equal resolution. Athole had slunk off to 
England, leaving his castle and his vassals to the charge 
of his agent, Stewart of Ballechin. Ballechin was a 

1 Mackay complains bitterly in his Memoirs of " the unconcerned 
method of the Government in matters which touch them nearest as 
to their general safety, each being for his particular, and fixed upon 
his private projects, so as neither to see nor be concerned for any- 
thing else." 



Chapter XI 195 

sturdy Jacobite ; and though he had not yet dared to 
arm the Athole men for James, he had managed on 
more than one occasion to do timely service to Dundee. 
Blair was one of the most important posts in the pro- 
posed line of garrisons. It commanded on one side the 
only road by which troops could march from the low 
country of Perth into the Highlands, and on the other 
the passes leading to the Spey and the Dee. Whoever 
held Blair practically held the key of the Highlands. 
Mackay therefore urged Murray, who was then in Edin- 
burgh, to get rid of this unjust steward and make sure 
of so valuable a stronghold for the Government. Murray 
promised to do what he could. He did not profess to 
be very sanguine of persuading the men of Athole to 
fight for William ; but for the castle, he could not sup- 
pose that Ballechin would dare to shut the gates of his 
own father's house against him. " Keep the Athole 
men from joining Dundee," said Mackay, " and that is 
all I ask, or can expect from your father's son." He- 
pressed Murray to start at once for Blair, promising to 
follow as soon as he could collect the necessary force of 
troops and stores. 

It was tedious work preparing for a campaign in 
Edinburgh, where, nobody feeling himself in imme- 
diate danger, nobody was concerned to guard against it. 
Mackay was detained longer than he had expected, and 
before he could lake the field bad news had come clown 
from Perthshire. Ballechin was strongly entrenched in 
Blair, and resolute not to budge an inch. The Athole 
men had gathered readily enough to their young lord's 
summons; but when they found he had summoned them 
to fight for King William they had gone off in a body 

o 2 



1 96 Cla verho use 

shouting for King James. 1 And there was yet worse 
news. The fiery cross was speeding once more through 
the Western Highlands. There could be no doubt that 
Ballechin was acting under orders from Dundee. A few 
men had stayed with Murray, and with these he pro- 
posed to watch the castle and the pass till Mackay 
should come. But the clans were mustering fast. 
Dundee himself was said to be in the neighbourhood. 
Unless troops could be brought up at once, Blair would 
be irretrievably lost, and the key of the Highlands in 
the hands of Dundee. 

Dundee was in the neighbourhood. He was at 
Strnan, close to Blair, whence he wrote more than one 
letter to Murray, using every argument he could think 
likely to influence the interests or the prejudices of 
Athole's son. Professing to be convinced that Murray 
was really for James, though doubtful about the time 
for declaring himself, he declared that he had only sent 
help to Ballechin to keep the rebels at bay till Murray 
was able to act as his principles and education would 
naturally suggest. The King, he said, had seen the 
mistakes into which Melfort had hurried him. He had 

1 " When in front of Blair Castle their real destination was dis- 
closed to them by Lord Tullibardine [the heir of Athole did not. as- 
sume this style till 1695]. Instantly they rushed from their ranks, 
ran to the adjoining stream of Banovy, and, filling their bonnets with 
water, drank to the health of King James ; and then, with colours 
flying and pipes playing, ' fifteen hundred of the men of Athole, as 
reputable for arms as any in the kingdom ' [Mackay's words], put 
themselves under the command of the Laird of Ballechin and 
marched off to join Lord Dundee." Stewart's " Sketches of the 
Highlanders of Scotland," i. 67. But this is not strictly true. They 
joined neither Ballechin nor Dundee, but went off on their own 
account to the mountains to watch the issue of events. 



Chapter XI 197 

now given his word to secure the Protestant religion as 
by law established, to allow full liberty of conscience 
to all dissenters, and to grant a general pardon for all 
except those who had been actively engaged in dethron- 
ing him. What more might be necessary to satisfy the 
people, Dundee begged Murray to let him know. The 
King was particularly anxious for advice on these points, 
and ready to go all reasonable lengths ; and Murray, he 
well knew, would advise nothing unreasonable. No 
more was to be feared from Melfort, who had promised 
to forgive all old quarrels, and even to resign his office 
rather than force himself upon those who were unwilling 1 
to receive him. Finally (keeping to the last the most 
powerful argument he could devise), he declared that it 
was now in Murray's power to u have the honour of the 
whole turn of the King's affairs." Murray would make 
no answer, refused to see Dundee's messengers, and sent 
all his letters on to Mackay. 1 

1 Probably Dundee wrote more confidently than he felt. He 
owned that Murray might (i have more to do to believe " Melfort's 
assurance than James's ; but, in fact, there was too good reason to 
disbelieve both. From the first letter written from Struan it ap- 
pears that the despatch from James which had fallen into Hamil- 
ton's hands was much more temperate and conciliatory than the 
earlier one brought to the Convention by Crane. Dundee had not 
seen this despatch ; and it is possible that he described it rather as 
his own good sense urged him to believe it must have been, than as 
it really was. The letters to himself, which he summarises for Murray's 
benefit, must have been those acknowledged in the postscript to Mel- 
fort of June 28th. It is, as we shall presently see, certain that about 
this time James was induced to assume, as he had before assumed 
when it was too late, the virtue of toleration. How much of these 
promises Dundee really believed, it is impossible to say. The history 
of our own time has shown, and is every day showing, that neither 



1 98 Cla verholse 

Dundee knew the importance of Blair as well as 
Mackay. As soon as lie heard from Ballechin of Murray's 
action, he threw a garrison into the castle, and sent 
signal to the clans to join him at once. The time was 
short : too short even to muster all the outlying Came- 
rons. Some days must elapse before he could expect to 
see round him such a force as he had commanded two 
months earlier, and every hour was precious. Lochiel 
urged him to march at once for Blair with such forces 
as were at hand, promising to follow with the rest. But 
Dundee was loth to advance without Lochiel. He relied 
much on the old chief's sagacity and experience, on his 
knowledge of the Highland character, and his tact in 
managing it : without his counsel and support he did 
not feel even now certain of his quarrelsome captains. 
He prayed Lochiel, therefore, to come with him, leaving 
his son to bring on the late musters. 

As they marched through Badenoch they were joined 
by the long-promised succours from Ireland — three 
hundred ragged Irish recruits, half starved, badly armed, 
and entirely ignorant of war. Their leader was an officer 
named Cannon, who bore a commission from James 
giving him rank next to Dundee, a position which 
neither his abilities nor his experience entitled him to 
hold in such an army. Some stores of powder and food 
had been sent with them ; but the vessels containing 
them had, through Cannon's negligence, been taken in 
the Hebrides by English cruisers. Dundee had neither 
powder nor food to spare. There had been no time to 
collect provisions ; and for many days past his officers 

wisdom nor experience will always avail to prevent a man from 
believing that which it is his interest to believe. 



Chapter XI 199 

had eaten no bread and drunk nothing but water. The 
great promises of help on which the Highlanders had so 
confidently relied, on the assurance of which they had 
taken the field, and for which their general had repeat- 
edly given his own word, had shrunk to this — three 
hundred empty mouths to feed, and three hundred 
useless hands to arm. 1 

And now word came that Mackay was approaching. 
He had marched by way of Stirling to Perth, at which 
place he had appointed his muster. At Stirling he had 
found six troops of dragoons, which he had ordered to 
follow him to Perth. On July 26th he was at Dunkeld, 
where he received word, from Murray of Dundee's ar- 
rival at Blair, but not the dragoons he was expecting 
from Stirling. His own cavalry consisted of but two 
troops, chiefly composed of new levies. He dared no 
longer trust Livingstone's dragoons in the face of the 
enemy. Half of the officers he had been obliged to 
send under guard to Edinburgh as traitors : the rest 
of the regiment was out of harm's way in quarters at 
Inverness. The horses of Colchester's men were in 
such a plight after their marches among the Gram- 
pians that they could not carry a saddle. Mackay knew 
well how important cavalry was to the work before him. 
A mounted soldier was the one antagonist a Highlander 
feared ; and his fear was much the same superstitious 
awe that a century and a half earlier the hordes of 
Montezuma had felt for the armoured horsemen of Cortez. 
But the messages from Murray were urgent, and he 
dared not delay. At break of day on Saturday, the 

1 Memoirs of Balcarres and of Lochiel. 



200 LLAVERHOUSE 

27th, he marched out from Dunkeld. for the glen of 
Killiecrankie. 

His force, according to his own calculation, was 
between three and four thousand strong; but barely 
one half of these were seasoned troops. There was the 
Scots Brigade, indeed, of three regiments, his own, 
Balfour's, and Kamsay's. But before despatching them 
to Scotland William had ordered them to be carefully 
weeded of all Dutch soldiers, that the patriotism of the 
natives might be offended by no hint of a foreign inva- 
sion ; and the gaps thus made had been hastily filled up 
in Edinburgh. Besides this brigade were three other re- 
giments of infantry : the one lately raised by Lord Leven 
(now the Twenty-fifth of the Line, and still recognizing 
its origin in its title of The Borderers), Hastings' (now 
the Thirteenth of the Line), and Lord Kenmure's. 1 Of 
these, Hastings' was manned chiefly by Englishmen, and 
seems to have been the only one of the three that had 
had any real experience of war. One troop of horse 
was commanded by Lord Belhaven : the other should 
have been commanded by Lord Annandale, whose name 
it bore, but Mackay could persuade neither him nor 
Lord Ross to take the field. Some feeling of compunc- 
tion may have kept the latter from drawing his sword 
against an old comrade in arms ; but Lord Annandale 

1 I have given the modern style of these regiments as they were 
before the last freak of the War Office. What they may be now, I 
do not know ; nor is the knowledge important, for the style I have 
used will probably be most familiar to my readers, "My Uncle 
Toby," it will be remembered, was of Leven's regiment. There 
exists a letter from Schomberg to Lord Leven, especially commend- 
ing to the latter's care a gentleman of the name of Le Fevre. See 
the " Leven and Melville Papers." 



Chapter XI 201 

had always been fonder of wrangling than fighting. 
Mackay makes no mention of any artillery ; but it 
appears that he had a few small field-pieces of the kind 
known as Sandy's Stoups from \h<d name of their in- 
ventor. 1 

It is only possible to guess at Dundee's numbers. 
When he broke up his army early in June he seems to 
have had about three thousand claymores under him. 
The second muster was. we know, much smaller than 
the first ; and though it was slightly increased on the 
march, and while he waited at Blair, the whole force he 
led at Killiecrankie cannot have much exceeded two 
thousand men. Over and above the claymores he had 
not four hundred. The Irish were three hundred, and 
his cavalry mustered about fifty sabres. Highland tradi- 
tion puts the claymores at nineteen hundred ; and this 
is probably much about the truth. Artillery, of course, 
he had none. 

As soon as it was known that Mackay was at the 
' mouth of the pass, Dundee called a council of war. 

1 Mackay says in his Memoirs that he left Edinburgh with two 
troops of horse, and four of dragoons. It is certain that only the 
former were engaged at Killiecrankie. But the general's narrative 
is throughout extremely confused, and sometimes barely intelligible. 
Perhaps the larger force was that he had counted on having ; or the 
four troops of dragoons may have been those he ordered to follow 
from. Stirling. 

Alexander Hamilton, who commanded, the artillery in the 
Covenanter's army with which Leslie and Montrose made the famous 
passage of the Tyne in 1640. From Burton's description of them 
they can hardly have been very dangerous, at least to the enemy. 
"They seem to have been made of tin for the bore, with a coating 
of leather, all secured by tight cordage. A horse could carry two of 
them, and it was their meril to stand a few discharges before they 
came to pieces." " History of Scotland," vi. 302. 



102 Claverhouse 

Three courses, he told his officers, were before them : 
to harass Mackay's advance with frequent skirmishes, 
avoiding a general engagement till the reinforcements a 
few days would certainly bring had made the numbers 
more equal : to attack him in the pass ; or to wait till 
he had reached the level ground above it. His own 
officers, and th.6 Lowland gentlemen generally, were 
in favour of the first plan. Some of the chiefs were in 
favour of the second. Dundee listened courteously to 
all, and then turned to the old chief of the Camerons 
who had not yet spoken. "What, he asked, did Lochiel 
advise ? Lochiel had no doubt. They must fight and 
fight at once, were the enemy three to one. Their men 
were in heart : they would have all the advantage of 
the ground : let Mackay get fairly through the pass 
that the Highlanders might see their foes, and then 
charge home. He had no fear for the result ; but he 
would answer for nothing were the claymores to be 
kept back now the Saxons were fairly at their feet. 

Those who watched Dundee saw his eye brighten. 
He answered that he agreed with every word Lochiel 
had spoken. Delay would bring reinforcements to 
Mackay as well as to them, and Mackay's reinforce- 
ments would almost certainly include more cavalry. 
To fight them in the pass was useless. In that narrow 
way the weight of the Highland onset would be lost. 
The claymores would not have room for their work, 
and half the column would escape. They must fight 
on open ground and on fair terms, as Montrose would 
have fought. 1 

1 It is said that one of Dundee's arguments against attacking in 
the pass was, that it did not become brave soldiers to engage a foe 



Chapter XT 203 

There was no more opposition. The word for battle 
went through the elans, and was hailed with universal 
delight. Then Lochiel spoke again. He had always, 
he said, promised implicit obedience to Dundee, and he 
had kept his promise ; but for once he should com- 
mand. u It is the voice of your Council," he went on, 
" and their orders are that you do not engage per- 
sonally. Tour Lordship's business is to have an eye 
on all parts, and to issue out your commands as you 
shall think proper. It is ours to execute them with 
promptitude and courage. On you depends the fate 
not only of this little brave army, but also of our King 
and country." He finished by threatening that neither 
he nor any of his clan should draw sword that day 
unless his request were granted. Dundee answered 
that he knew his life to be at that moment of some 
importance, but he could not on that day of all days 
refuse to hazard it. The Highlanders would never 
again obey in council a general whom they thought 
afraid to lead them in war. Hereafter he would do as 
Lochiel advised, but he must charge at the head of his 

at disadvantage, an argument which I should imagine Dundee was 
much too sensible a man to employ to Highlanders. Had his force 
been sufficient for him to close up the mouth of the pass after the 
Lowlanders had entered, it is hard to imagine he would have lost 
the chance of catching Mack ay in such a trap. But his force was 
too small to divide: while the nature of the ground would of course 
have told as much against those who made as against those who me1 
a charge, besides inevitably offending the jealous point of honour 
which forbad one clan to take precedence of another, ll may be, 
too, that Dundee was not very well served by his scouts. Mackay 
certainly seems to have got well on his way through (lie pass before 
the other knew that he had entered it. See the "Life of MEackay," 
and the " Rebellions in Scotland." 



204 Cla verhousr 

men in their first battle. " Give me," he concluded, 
"one Sliear-Darcj (harvest-day's work) for the King, 
my master, that I may show the brave clans that I 
can hazard my life in that service as freely as the 
meanest of them." l 

Mackay had reached the mouth of the pass at ten 
in the morning. Here he found Murray and his little 
band, who had not judged it prudent to remain longer 
in the neighbourhood of Blair. Two hundred picked 
men were accordingly sent forward to reconnoitre under 
Colonel Lauder ; and at noon, the ground having been 
reported clear in front, the whole column advanced. 

The pass of Killiecrankie is now almost as familiar 
to the Southron as to the Highlander. It forms the 
highest and narrowest part of a magnificent wooded 
defile in which the waters of the Tummel flowing east- 
ward from Loch Rannoch meet the waters of the Garry 
as it plunges down from the Grampians. Along one 
of the best roads in the kingdom, or by the swift and 
comfortable service of the Highland railway, the tra- 
veller ascends by easy gradations from Pitlochrie, through 
the beautiful grounds of Faskally to the little village 
and station of Killiecrankie, where a guide earns an 
unlaborious livelihood by conducting the panting Saxon 
over the famous battle-field and to various commanding 
points of the defile. How the scene must have looked 
in those days, and what thoughts it must have sug- 
gested to men either ignorant of war or accustomed 
to pursue it in civilised countries, has been described 
by Macaulay in a passage which it were superfluous 
to quote and impertinent to paraphrase. Near sixty 
1 Memoirs of Lochiel. 



Chapter XI 205 

years later, when some Hessian troops were marching 
to the relief of Blair Castle, then besieged by the 
forces of Prince Charles, the stolid Germans turned 
from the desperate sight and, vowing that they had 
reached the limits of the world, marched resolutely 
back to Perth. The only road that then led through 
this Valley of the Shadow of Death was a rugged path, 
so narrow that not more than three men could walk 
abreast, winding along the edge of a precipitous cliff 
at the foot of which thundered the black waters of the 
Garry. Balfour's regiment led the van of this perilous 
march : the baggage was in the centre, guarded by 
Mackay's own battalion : Annandale's horse and Has- 
tings' foot brought up the rear. 

For about the last mile and a half the pass runs due 
north and south ; but at the summit the river bends 
westward, and the mountains sweep back to the right. 
As the head of the column emerged into open air it 
found itself on a small table-land, flanked on the left by 
the Garry, and on the right by a tier of low hills sparely 
dotted with dwarf trees and underwood. Above these 
hills to the north and east rose the lofty chain of the 
Grampians crowned by the towering peaks of Ben Gloe 
and Ben Vrackie. In front the valley gradually opened 
out towards Blair Castle, about three miles distant, and 
along this valley Mackay naturally looked for the High- 
land advance. He sent some pioneers forward to en- 
trench his position, and as each regiment came up on 
to the level ground, he formed it in line three deep. 
Balfour's regiment thus made the left wing resting on 
the Garry, while Hastings was on the right where the 
ground began to slope upwards to the liills. Next to 



2o6 Cla verho use 

Balfour stood Ramsay's men, and then Kenmure's, 
Leven's, and the general's own regiment. The guns 
were in the centre, and the two troops of horse in the 
rear of the guns. 

In the meantime Dundee had not been idle. Send- 
ing a few men straight down the valley, he led his 
main body across the Tilt, which joins the Garry just 
below the castle, round at the back of the hills till he 
had reached the English right. Mackay was in front 
with his skirmishers, watching what he supposed to be 
the approach of Dundee's van, when word was brought 
to him that the enemy were occupying the hills on the 
right in force. Mackay saw his danger at a glance. 
The Highlanders would be down like one of their own 
rivers in flood on his right flank, and roll the whole 
line up into the Garry. On one of the hills overlook- 
ing his position stood what is now known as Urrard 
House, but was then called by its proper name of Ren- 
rorie. 1 Immediately below this stretched a piece of 
ground large and level enough in Mackay 's judgment 
for his army to receive, though not to give, the attack. 
He made no change in his line, but wheeling it as it 
stood upon the right wing, he marched it up the slope 
on to this new ground in the face of the enemy. 2 His 
position was now better than it had been ; but it was 
bad enough. The river was in his rear, and behind 
the river the inhospitable mountains. His only way of 
escape, should the day go against him, lay through that 

1 For long afterwards the battle was known among the High- 
landers as the battle of Kenrorie. 

2 Mackay's Memoirs: "a quart de conversion" is his ownphrase 
for this change of front. 



Chapter XI 207 

terrible pass up which, with no enemy to harass him, lie 
had just climbed with infinite toil. He could hardly 
hope to make good his retreat down such a road with a 
victorious army maddening in his rear. In the pre- 
liminary game of tactics he had been completely out- 
manoeuvred by his old comrade. 

The clans were now forming for battle. The Mac- 
leans of Duart held the post of honour on the right wing. 
Next to the Macleans stood Cannon with his Irish. 
Then came the men of Clanranald, the men of Glen- 
garry, and the Camerons. The left wing was composed 
of the Macdonalcls of Sleat and some more Macleans. In 
the centre was the cavalry, commanded not as hitherto 
by the gallant Dunfermline, but by a gentleman bear- 
ing the illustrious name of Wallace. He had crossed 
from Ireland with Cannon ; but nothing is heard of him 
till apparently on the very morning of the day he pro- 
duced a commission from James superseding the Earl 
of Dunfermline in favour of Sir William Wallace ot 
Craigie. What would otherwise appear one of those 
inexplicable freaks by which James ever delighted to 
confound his affairs at their crisis, is amply explained 
by the fact that the new captain was the brother of 
Melfort's second wife. Fortunately Dunfermline was 
too good a soldier and too loyal a gentleman to resent 
the slight. As Mackay's line was much longer than his, 
Dundee was compelled to widen the spaces between the 
clans for fear of being outflanked, which left for his 
centre only this little cluster of sabres. Lochieks eldest 
son, John, was with his father, but Allan, the second, 
held a commission in Mackay's own regiment. As the 
general saw each clan take up its ground, he turned to 



208 Claverhouse 

young Cameron and said, pointing to the standard of 
Loehiel, " There is your father with his wild savages; 
how would you like to be with him ? " "It signifies 
little what I would like/' was the spirited answer; 
" but I recommend you to be prepared, or perhaps my 
father and his wild savages may be nearer to you before 
night than you would like ! " ' 

Each general spoke a few words to his men. Dun- 
dee reminded his captains that they were assembled 
that day to fight in the best of causes, in the cause of 
their King, their religion and their country, against 
rebels and usurpers. He urged them to behave like 
true Scotchmen, and to redeem their country from the 
disgrace cast on it by the treachery and cowardice of 
others. He asked nothing of them but what they 
should see him do before them all. Those who fell 
would fall honourably like true and brave soldiers : those 
who lived and conquered would have the reward of a 
gracious King and the praise of all good men. Let them 
charge home then, in the name of King James and the 
Church of Scotland. Mackay urged the same honour- 
able duty on his battalions ; but he added one very 
practical consideration which suggests that he was not 
so confident of the issue as he afterwards professes to 
have been, and which was perhaps not very wisely 
offered. They must fight, he said, for they could not 
fly. The enemy was much quicker afoot than they, and 
there were the Athole men waiting to pounce on all 
runaways. Such thoughts would hardly furnish the 
best tonic to a doubtful spirit. Nevertheless the troops 
answered cheerfully that they would stand by their 
1 " Sketches of the Highlanders," 



Chapter XI 209 

general to the last ; which, adds the brave old fellow 
ruefully in his despatch, " most of them belied shortly 
after." l 

A dropping fire of musketry had for some time been 
maintained between the two lines, and on the English 
left there had been some closer skirmishing between 
Lauder's sharpshooters and the Macleans. Mackay was 
anxious to engage before the sun set. He doubted how 
his raw troops would stand a night-attack from a foe 
to whom night and day were one : still more did he fear 
what might happen in the darkness during the confu- 
sion of a retreat down that awful pass. But he could 
not attack, and Dundee would not, till his moment came. 
The darkness the other feared would be all in his favour. 
A very short time he knew would be enough to decide 
the issue of the battle. Should that issue be favourable 
to King James, as he felt confident it would be, he had 
determined that before the next morning dawned there 

1 Among the Nairne Papers is what purports to be a copy of 
Dundee's speech. It has been contemptuously rejected by some 
writers as a manifest forgery, on the ground that no Highlander 
would have understood a word of it. But there were Dundee's own 
officers and men to be addressed ; and, moreover, his language would 
have been perfectly intelligible to some, at least, of the chiefs, who 
would have conveyed its purpose to their men. It was still the 
fashion for a general to harangue his troops before leading them 
into action, and it was a fashion particularly in vogue among the 
Highlanders. I see no reason, therefore, to doubt the general authen- 
ticity of this speech. Exactly as it stands in the Nairne Papers 
probably Dundee did not deliver it ; the style being somewhat more 
grandiloquent than he was in the habit of employing. But its 
general purpose, which I have endeavoured to give in a paraphrase, 
seems to be very much what such a man would have said at such a 
moment. The authority for Mackay's speech will be found in his 
own despatch to Lord Melville after the battle. 



2 1 o Cla verho use 

should be no army left to King William in the High- 
lands. 

The sun set, and the moment he had chosen came. 
The Southrons saw Dundee, who had now changed his 
scarlet coat for one of less conspicuous colour, ride along 
the line, and as he passed each clan they saw plaids and 
brogues flung off. They heard the shout with which 
the word to advance was hailed; but the cheer they 
sent back did not carry with it the conviction of 
victory. Lochiel turned to his Camerons with a smile. 
" Courage!" he said, u the day is our own. I am the 
oldest commander in this army ; and I tell you that 
feeble noise is the cry of men who are doomed to fall 
by our hands this night." Then the old warrior flung 
off his shoes with the rest of them, and took his place 
at the head of his men. Dundee rode to the front of 
his cavalry. The pipes sounded, and the clans came 
down the hill. 

They advanced slowly at first, without firing a shot, 
while Mackay's right poured a hot volley into their 
ranks, and the leathern cannon discharged their harm- 
less thunder from the centre. A gentleman of the 
Grants, who was fighting that day among the Mac- 
donalds, was knocked over by a spent ball which struck 
his target. " Sure, the Boddachs are in earnest now ! " 
he said, as he leaped to his feet with a laugh. It was 
not till they had reached the level ground that the 
Highlanders delivered their fire. One volley they 
poured in, and then, flinging their muskets away, 
bounded forward sword in hand with a terrific yell. 
The soldiers had not time to fix their bayonets in the 
smoking muzzles of their muskets before the claymores 



Chapter XI 211 

were among them and the battle was over. 1 On the 
left wing scarcely a trigger was pulled : the men broke 
and ran like sheep. The famous Scots Brigade, in fact, 
set the example of flight. Their officers behaved like 
brave soldiers. Balfour, abandoned by his men, de- 
fended himself for a time against overwhelming odds, 
till he was cut down by a young clergyman, Robert 
Stewart, a grandson of Ballechin. Eight officers of 
Mackay's own regiment were killed, including his 
brother, the colonel ; and many of Ramsay's. In vain 
was the cavalry ordered to charge. In vain did Bel- 
haven like a gallant gentleman gallop to the front. 
In vain did Mackay place himself at their head, and, 
calling on them to follow him, spur into the thick of 
the flashing claymores. Before his horse they fell back 
right and left in such a way as to justify his boast to 
Melville that with fifty stout troopers he could have 
changed the day even then ; but one of his own servants 
alone followed him. A few of the dragoons discharged 
their carbines at random. Then all turned and spurred 
off among the crowd of footmen to the mouth of the 
pass. Some of the fugitives tried to cross the Garry, 
and were either drowned in its swift waters, or cut 
down as they scrambled drenched and unarmed through 
its fords. Down the pass to Pitlochrie the rout went. 
The men of Athole, no longer doubtful of the issue, 
pounced from their lair upon the easy prey ; and even 
women lent their hands to the butchery. 2 

1 It was the disastrous experience of this day that led Mackay 
to devise a plan of fixing the bayonet to the musket so that each 
could be used, as now, without interfering with the other. 

2 " History of the Rebellions in Scotland.'* Even the men who 

p 2 



212 CLA VERHO USE 

Well might Mackay bitterly complain, " There was 
no regiment or troop with me but behaved like the vilest 
cowards in nature except Hastings and my Lord 
Leven's." l For on the right matters had fared rather 
better with the Lowlanders. Many of Leven's Borderers 
had stood firm and Hastings' Englishmen ; and where the 
Southrons stood firm the Highlanders wavered. But 
they were too few for Mackay to have any hopes of 
retrieving the fortune of the day. The Highlanders 
were now" busy with the baggage, which offered a more 
tempting and less troublesome prize than the struggling 
mass of fugitives. Mackay therefore collected the 
few men he could get together, and led them across 
the Garry by a ford above the field of battle over the 
mountains towards Stirling. On his march he overtook 
some more of his runaways whom Ramsay was leading 
in the same direction. Mackay did all it was possible 
for a brave man to do to encourage his men and keep 
them together. But many were too frightened to heed 
his words, or even the pistol with which he threatened to 
shoot the first man he saw leaving his ranks. The news 
of his defeat had spread with marvellous rapidity : the 
whole country was up : every glen and mountain sent 
out its reapers to the rich harvest. And where enemies 
did not exist, the fears of these poor wretches found 

had stood by Lord Murray joined in the slaughter. He did his best 
to keep them quiet, but was forced to own afterwards to Mackay 
that he had not been very successful. " It cannot be helped," he 
wrote, "of almost all country people, who are ready to pillage and 
plunder whenever they have occasion." See the Bannatyne edition 
of Dundee's Letters, &c. 

1 Mackay's opinion was that "the English commonalty were to 
be preferred in matter of courage to the Scots." 



Chapter XI 213 

them. Every drover with his herd, every shepherd with 
his flock, was magnified into a fresh array of the terrible 
Highlanders. On the evening of Monday, the 29th, 
Mackay reached Stirling with barely one-fifth of the 
force with which he had marched out of the town a week 
earlier. 

The Highland loss was calculated at nine hundred 
men. The Macdonalds and Camerons were the principal 
sufferers, their position on the left and left-centre having 
brought them in contact with the battalions who had 
kept their ground. Glengarry's brother was among the 
killed, with Macdonald of Largo, and no less than five 
cousins of Macdonald of the Isles. Among the Low- 
landers fell Hallyburton of Pitcur, and Gilbert Ramsay, 
Dundee's favourite officer, who had dreamed overnight 
of the victory and of his death. But though the battle 
had been won for James, he had suffered a greater loss 
than William. A fresh army could replace Mackay's 
broken battalions ; but no one could replace Dundee, 
and Dundee was dead. 

He had ridden at the head of his cavalry straight 
on Mackay's centre. But for some unexplained reason 
his troopers had not followed him close ; whether their 
new captain did not like the guns, or had misunder- 
stood his orders, is not clear. Dunfermline, seeing 
his general's plumed hat waving above the smoke, had 
spurred out of the ranks with sixteen gentlemen, and 
with these sabres the guns were taken and silenced. 
Dundee, seeing that all went well on the right wing, 
turned to the left where the Macdonalds were wavering 
before the firmer front of Hastings' Englishmen. As 
he galloped across the field to bring them to the charge, 



214 Claverhouse 

a shot struck him in the right side immediately below 
his breastplate. For a few strides further he clung 
swaying to his saddle, and then sank from his horse 
into the arms of a soldier named Johnstone. Like 
Wolfe on the heights of Abraham, he asked how the 
day went. " Well for the King," said the man, " but 
I am sorry for your Lordship." And like Wolfe, 
Dundee answered, "It is the less matter for me, 
seeing the day goes well for my master." As his 
officers returned from the pursuit they found him on the 
field, and it is said, though one would be glad to dis- 
believe it, stripped by the very men whom he had led 
to victory. By his side was found a bundle of papers. 
Among them was a letter from Melfort, bidding him be 
sure that both he and James would feel themselves 
bound by no promise of toleration circumstances had 
induced them to make. Well might Balcarres, who 
knew his friend's disposition better than Melfort, tell 
James how such foolish and disingenuous dealing had 
grieved Dundee and all who wished honestly to the 
cause. 1 

Dundee's body, wrapped in a plaid, was carried to 
the castle, and a few clays later buried in the old church 
of Blair. In 1852 some bones, believed to be his, were 

1 One tradition, for a long while current among the Lowlands, 
declares him to have been shot by one of his own men in the pay of 
William Livingstone, who afterwards married Lady Dundee; Living- 
stone having been for some weeks a close prisoner in Edinburgh 
with the other disaffected officers of his regiment. Lady Dundee, 
the story goes on to say, was aware of his intentions, and on the 
following New Year's day sent "the supposed assassin a white 
night-cap, a pair of white gloves, and a rope, being a sort of suit of 
canonicals for the gallows, either to signify that she esteemed him 
worthy of that fate, or that she thought the state of h;s mind might 



Chapter XI 215 

removed from Blair to the Clmrcli of Saint Drostan 
in the parish of Old Deer, in Aberdeenshire ; and eleven 
years later a window of stained glass was placed in the 

be such as to make him fit to hang himself." Another tradition 
makes Dundee fall by a shot fired from the window of Urrard House, 
in which a party of Mackay's men had lodged themselves. He was 
watering his horse at the time at a pond called the Goose-Dub, 
where the Laird of Urrard's geese were wont to disport them- 
selves. This story is evidently part of the old nurse's prophecy 
mentioned on page 3. For these and many other anecdotes of the 
battle, see the "History of the Kebellions in Scotland." I have 
taken my account of Dundee's death from the memoirs of Balcarres 
and Lochiel, and from the depositions, printed by Napier, of certain 
witnesses examined afterw T ards at Edinburgh, among them being an 
officer of Kenmure's regiment, w T ho was carried prisoner into the castle 
after the battle and heard Johnstone's story. As for the letter said to 
have been written by Dundee to James after the battle, and now 
among the Nairne Papers, there is more to be said for it than some have 
allowed. Macaulay, alluding to it as dated the daj'- after the battle, 
calls it as impudent a forgery as Fingal. But in fact it bears no date 
at all : the handwriting is declared on the best authority to be beyond 
question contemporary ; and there is no absolute proof that Dundee 
did not live long enough at least to dictate an account of his victoiy 
to James. It is tolerably certain that he would have done so had 
his strength permitted him. But in a letter written from Dublin in 
the following November by James to Ballechin, there is no mention 
of any letter from Dundee, and his death is there alluded to as hav- 
ing occurred at the beginning of the action. This, of course, is not 
conclusive ; James's actual words are, " the loss you had .... at 
your entrance into action," which need not imply instant death. 
On the whole, however, the balance of evidence seems to me to 
prove that Dundee died where he fell, and that the letter is not 
genuine, though certainly no forgery of Macrmerson's. Those who are 
still curious on a point which is, after all, of no very great importance 
will find it amply discussed in a note to the edition of Dundee's 
letters published for the Bannatyne Club, and in an appendix to 
Napier's third volume. A stone still murks (he spot where Dundee 
is said to have fallen, and was seen by Captain Burt less than fifty 
years after the battle 



2 1 6 Cla verho use 

same church, bearing, on a brass plate in the window- 
sill, this inscription : " Sacred to the memory of John 
Graham of Claverhouse, Viscount Dundee, who died in 
the arms of victory, and whose battle-cry was i King 
James and the Church of Scotland ! ' " 

As no stone was ever known to mark his first grave, 
there is, of course, ample room for the incredulous to 
smile over this late tribute to his memory. But in 
truth the shadow of doubt broods over him in death as 
in life. It is certain only that he received his death- 
wound on the field of battle, and in the moment of vic- 
tory. What else fell with him there was well expressed 
by William. When the news from Killiecrankie came 
down, the King was urged at once to send a large army 
into the Highlands. "It is needless," he answered, 
" the war ended with Dundee's life." 



INDEX. 



ABJURATION 

Abjuration oath, the, 121 
Acts against the Covenanters, 

35-6, -10, 45, 121 
Aircl's Moss, skirmish at, 91 
Annandale, Lord, 200 
Aroyle, Marquis of, 21. 22, 24, 

25, 28, 34 

— Earl of (son of preceding), 
45, 119, 139 

— Earl of (son of preceding), 
171, 193 

Athole, Marquis of, 44, 46, 139, 
145 note, 153, 154, 159, 162, 
188, 194 

— men of, behaviour of the, 
196 note, 211 and note 

Auchencloy, execution of Cove- 
nanters at, 128-31 

Auchinleck, Robert, execution 
of, 131-2 



Balcarres, Earl of, 141, 142, 
143, 148, 149, 151, 155, 156, 
157, 166, 189 

— memoirs of the Eevolution 
hy, 144 note 

Balfour, Colonel, 200, 205, 211 

— of Burley, John, 58, 60, 62, 
65, CO, 83 

Ballechin, Stewart of, 194 

— letter to, from James, 215 
note 



CHARLES 

Belhaven, Lord, 200, 211 
Blair Castle, 194, 195, 201, 214 
- Church, 214, 215 
Bothwell Bridge, battle of, 83- 

6 
Brown, John, execution of, 

116-22 
Bruce, Andrew, of Earlshall, 55, 

91 
Buchan, Colonel, 107, 108, 109, 

145 
Burnet, Bishop, on Claverhouse, 

4, 151 note 



Cameron of Lochiel, Sir Ewan, 
169, 170, 171, 179, 181, 185, 
198, 202, 203, 210 

— memoirs of, 5 note 

Allan, 207-8 

- Richard, 91 

Cameronians, the, 91 

Cannon, Colonel, joins Claver- 
hoirse with Irishmen, 198 

Cargill, Rev. Donald, 78, 79, 91 

Charles the Second, signs the 
Covenant, 24 

crowned in Scotland, 

24 

— his opinion of Lauder- 
dale's administration, 42 

acquits Claverhouse 

of malversation, 91 



218 



Claverhouse 



CHAELES 

Charles the Second appoints 
Claverhouse to a regiment 
of cavalry, 97 

his goodwill to Claver- 
house, 100 and note 

■ — settles Claverhouse in 

possession of Dudhope, 101 

Claverhouse, birth of, 1 

— family and education, 2-7 

— supposed to have served in 
French army, 8, 9 

— gallant action at Seneff, 12, 
13 

— resigns commission in Dutch 
service, 15 

— story of his reasons for re- 
signing, 15, 16 note 

— applies to Montrose for em- 
ployment, 41 

— receives lieutenant's com- 
mission, 45 

— portrait of, 46, 47 

— refuses to interfere illegally 
with Covenanters, 48 

— appointed Deputy- Sheriff of 
Dumfriesshire, 55 

— at Drumclog, 70 

— at Glasgow, 72, 73 

— at Bothwell Bridge, 85, 86 

— accused of malversation, 90, 
91 note 

— appointed Sheriff of Wig- 
townshire, 92 

— his policy towards the Co- 
venanters, 92-3,135 and note 

— receives command of cavalry 
regiment, 97 

— his quarrel with the D ai- 
ry mples, 95-7 

— his visit to England, 97-100 

— made a Privy- Councillor, 
100 

— obtains estate of Dudhope, 
101 

— his marriage, 101-5 

— merciful conduct to pri- 
soners, 109 



CLAVEKHOUSE 

Claverhouse, examination into 
charges against, 111-36 

— in disgrace, 1 25-6 

— his character, 134-5 

— his quarrel with Queens- 
berry, 139-42 

— second visit to England, 142 

— Provost of Dundee and 
Major- General, 143 

— marches into England, 145 

— quartered in London, 146 

— joins James at Salisbury, 146 

— created Viscount of Dundee, 
146 

— his advice to James, 147 

— marches to Reading, 147 

— receives a message from 
William at Watford, 148 

— attends Scottish Council in 
London, 148 

— waits on James at Whitehall 
for the last time, 149 

— negotiations w T ith William, 
151 

— returns to Edinburgh, 151 

— plot to assassinate him, 158 
• — leaves Edinburgh, 160 

— his interview with the Duke 
of Gordon, 160 

— proclaimed traitor by the 
Convention, 164 

— escapes to Glen Ogilvy, 166 

— a son born to him, 173 

— saves Inverness from Kep- 
poch, 174 

— his raid upon Dunkeld and 
Perth, 175 

— demonstration outside Dun- 
dee, 177 

■ — at Lochaber, 179 

— the muster of the Clans, 
179-80 

— his popularity with the 
Highlanders, 182-3 

— returns to Lochaber, 185 

— re-assembles the Clans, 198 

— garrisons Blair Castle, 198 



Index 



219 



CLAVERHOUSE 

Claverhouse holds Council of 
War, 201-4 

— addresses his soldiers, 208 
■ — death and burial, 213-15 
Cleland, William, 65, 159 

" Cloud of Witnesses," the, 

value of the testimony of, 

123 
Cochrane, Lady Jean, 101, 102, 

101 
Convention of Estates, the, 

155-9, 161-2, 165-6 
Covenanters, assembly of, at 

Mauchline, 21 

— under Strachan, 28 

— cruelties of, 29, 30 
— character of, 29, 59 

— address of, to Charles, 32 

— rising of, in the West, 37 

— divisions among, 7 7- -80, 82, 
83 

— declarations by, 63, 91, 120, 
121 note 

— treatment of, after Bothwell 
Bridge, 87-8 

— rabble the Episcopalian 
clergy, 154 

Creichton, Captain, 176-7 
Cromwell, Oliver, his advice to 

the Presbyterians, 20 
negotiates with Argyle, 

21, 25 
his policy towards the 

Presbyterians, 25-6 



Dalrymples of Stair, their 

quarrel with Claverhou.se, 

95-7 
Dalziel, Thomas, 38, 81, 85, 106, 

145 note 
Declaration of Indulgence, the, 

8 

— — repeal of, 9 

— the Rutherglen, 63 

— the Hamilton, 82 
• — the Sanquhar, 91 



GRAHAM 

Defoe on Claverhouse, 123 
note, 127, 131 

— value of his testimony, 124 
note 

Douglas, General James, 123, 

126, 139-40, 145, 147, 188 
Drumclog, battle of, 64-71 
Drumlanrig, Viscount, 145 note, 

147 
Drummoncl, General, 126 
• — Alexander, of Bahaldy, 169 

— John, of Bahaldy, 5 note 
Drunken Parliament, the, 33 
Dumbarton, Earl of, 123, 137, 

138, 147, 150 

Dundee, Viscount of. See Cla- 
verhouse 

memoirs of, 16 note 

— Viscountess of, second mar- 
riage and death, 105 note 

— story of, and Col. Living- 
stone, 214 note 

Dunclonalcl, Earl of, 101, 103 
Dunfermline, Earl of, 172, 180, 

189, 207, 213 
Dunmore, Earl of, 145 note, 

150 



Edinburgh, riots in, 142, 
154-5 

Enterkin Hill, rescue of Cove- 
nanters at, 109 

Episcopal clergy, Scotch, Bur- 
net's complaint against, 48 
note 



Feud between Macclonalds and 

Mackintoshes, 123 
Field-preaching, Act against, 40 



Gordon, Duke of, in command 
of Edinburgh Castle, 155-6, 
I6() 61, 1ST note 

Graham, David, 3, 115, 180 



220 



Claverhouse 



GRAHAM 

Graham, Robert, 68 and note 
Grameis, the, 13, 173 
Gfrierson, Sir Robert. See Lag 



Hackston of Rathillet, 58, 60, 

83,91 
Hamilton, Duke of, 42, 102, 

148, 153, 155, 159, 161-3, 

165-6 

— Robert, 62-3, 65, 71-3, 77-9, 
82-4 

Highland Host, the, 41-2 
Highlanders, loyalty of, 169- 
71 

— their value as soldiers, 168, 
181 

Hislop, Andrew, execution of, 
125-7 



James the Second, as Duke of 

"Xork, favours Claverhouse, 

44 
High 

Commissioner in Scotland, 

91,97 
promotes Claverhouse, 

139-40 
— summons him to Lon- 
don, 141 
announces invasion of 

England to Scotch Council, 

143 
orders Scotch troops 

to England, 144 

at Salisbury, 145-7 

his flight and return, 

148 
ordered to leave the 

capital by William, 148 
— his last interview with 

Balcarres and Claverhouse, 

149-50 

leaves England, 150 

— his foolish letter to 

the Estates, 156 



LIVINGSTONE 

James the Second, his letter to 
Claverhouse falls into hands 
of Hamilton, 165 

— • — his promises of tolera- 
tion, 197 note, 214 

— his letter to Balle- 

chin, 215 note 



Keppoch, Colin Macdonald of, 

170, 173-4, 183 
Killing-time, the, 111-36 
King, Rev. John, 64, 71 



LAG, the Laird of, 49-53, 114 
note 

Latin poem on Battle of Both- 
well Bridge, 68 note 

Lauderdale, Duke of, 33, 39, 42, 
58, 98 

— Earl of, 98-101 
Leather guns, 201 
Leighton, Bishop, 34, 40 
Leslie, David, 30 

Letters from Claverhouse to 
Archbishop Burnet, 107, 108 

to Duke of Hamilton, 

163-4 

to James, 215 note 

___ _ _._. to Earl of Melfort, 
186-92 

— — — to Linlithgow, 48-9, 
54, 56, 64-5, 67, 70 

— to Lord Murray, 

196-7 
to Queensberry, 92, 94, 

96 note, 99 note, 103-4, 109, 

117, 138 
Leven, Earl of, 166, 200, 212 
Linlithgow, Earl of, 44, 81 
Livingstone, George, Lord, 83, 

145, 162-3 

— Sir Thomas, 150, 172, 185, 
199 

— William, 176, 177 note, 2U 
note 



Index 



22 I 



MACAULAY 

Macaulay on Claverhouse, 
13, 17, 18, 119, 125, 151 note 

Macdonald of Keppoch, 170 

Macdonalds, killed at Killie- 
crankie, 213 

Mackay, General, story of his 
alleged quarrel with Claver- 
house, 16 note 

commands the troops in 

Scotland, 172 

tries to raise the Clans 

for William, 178-9 

marches against Claver- 
house, 184-5 

new plan of campaign, 

193 

sends Lord Murray to 

Blair Castle, 195 

takes the field again, 199 

the strength of his army, 

200-1 and note 

— — marches through the 
Pass of Killiecrankie, 204-5 

his order of battle, 206 

his address to his troops, 

208 

his bravery, 211 

■ — — his opinion of English 

soldiers, 212 note 
his retreat to Stirling, 

212-13 

— John, of Kockfields, his bio- 
graphy of General Mackay, 
1 6 note 

Mackenzie, Sir George, 99, 159, 
188 

— Colin, 105 
Macpherson, James, alleged 

forgery of letters from Cla- 
verhouse by, 215 note 

Martyrs, the Wigtown, 112-15 

Mekellwrath, Matthew, execu- 
tion of, 128 

Melfort, Earl of, 142, 111, 
156-8, 165, 186, 207 

Mitchell, James, attempl bo 
assassinate Sharp by, 58 



RESOLUTIOXERS 

Mitchell, Robert, 130 

Monmouth, Duke of, appointed 
to command army in Scot- 
land, 80 

- his leniency to the Cove- 
nanters, 82, 84, 87 

— executed, 139 

Montrose, Marquis of, 44-5, 46 
Munro, Dr., on Claverhouse, 5 
Murray, Earl of, letter from to 
Queensberry, 140 

— Lord Charles. See Earl of 
Dunmore 

— Lord, 194-7, 204, 211 note 
Muster-roil of Claverhouse's 

regiment, 145 note 



Nairne Papers, the, 209 note, 

215 note 
Napier, Mark, his " Life and 

Times of Dundee," 5 note 



Peirson, Rev. Peter, murder of, 

129-30 
Perth, Earl of, 39 note, 142, 

154-5 
" Pilliwincks," torture of the. 

See Thumbkin 
Plot to assassinate Claverhouse 

and Mackenzie, 159 



Queensberry, Duke of, 55, 
92,99, 137-8, 141, 162. See 
Letters from Claverhouse to 



RAMSAY, Lieut. -Col., 184, 211, 
212 

- Gilbert, 213 

Remonstrants, the, 21, 25-8 

Ren wick, head of the Cove- 
nanters, proclamation b} r , 
121 note 

Resolutioners, the, 21, 25-8 



222 



Claverhouse 



EOSS 

Ross, George, Lord, 57 arc! 

note, 61, 72 
— William, Lord, 105 and note, 

200 
Bullion Green, battle of, 38 
Rutherford, Rev. Samuel, 35 
Ruthven Castle destroyed, 184 



Saint Deostan, church of, 
memorial to Claverhouse in, 
215-6 

Sanquhar Declaration, the, 91 

Scotch troops ordered to Eng- 
land, 144 

Scotland, state of, reviewed, 17- 
76 

Scott, Sir Walter, his account 
of Drumclog in " Old Mor- 
tality," 67 

■ his account of Both- 
well Bridge in the same, 85 
and note 

Seneff, battle of, 12 

Sharp, James, 26, 31 

— -consecrated Primate of Scot- 
land, 34 

— murdered, 57, 60 

Simpson, Rev. Robert, on Cla- 
verhouse and the Covenan- 
ters, 132 note 

Smith, Robert, evidence on 
battle of Both well Bridge, 
85 

Stormont, Viscount of, 176 and 
note 



THUMBK1N, torture of the, 39 

note 
Tinchel, the, 193 and note 
Traditions about Claverhouse, 

3, 4:7 note, 70, 182, 214 note 
Turner, Sir James, 36-8 



WODEOW 

Walkee, Patrick, on Claver- 
house, 7 note, 135 

his opinion of Wcclrow, 

116 

on death of John Brown, 

116-17, 122 and note 
Welsh, Rev. John, 56-7, 78, 82 
Westerhall, Johnstone of, 125 
Western Shires, the, nursery of 

the Covenanters, 29 
Whiggamores' raid, the, 22 
Whigs, origin of the name of, 
82 note 

— brought into Edinburgh by 
Hamilton, 158-9, 161 

William the Third, stories of 
his early acquaintance with 
Claverhouse, 12, 15-16 

-his message to Claver- 
house, 148 

— — — tries to persuade 
Claverhouse and Balcarres to 
enter his service, 151 and 
note 

■ his opinion of Claver- 
house, 216 

Winrahame, George, 118 note, 
160 

Wodrow, Rev. Robert, his 
"History of the Sufferings 
of the Church of Scotland," 
51-2 

— — — vagueness of his 
charges against Claverhouse, 
88 

on the Wigtown Mar- 
tyrs, 113-14 

~ on the death of John 

Brown, 116 

- — -- Andrew 

Hislop, 127 

__ _ on the murder of Rev. 

Peter Peirson, 129-30 and 
note 



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